Call for the Doctor
by rabidsamfan
Summary: A drabble series. When Watson is called to help an accident victim he finds that the patient is Holmes -- and that the accident was no accident at all. Now with an author note appended!
1. Call for the Doctor

I knelt carefully in the dirty straw. The carthorse in the stall opposite seemed placid now, but it would be better to move the patient away if we could do it safely. "All right, let's have a look," I said, hoping not too many ribs had been broken, but the man only groaned and curled tighter. "What's his name?" I asked the groom who had summoned me from my surgery.

"He said it was Bill," came the reply, as cold as the ring of metal that suddenly rested against the back of my neck. "But I think it's Sherlock Holmes."


	2. Still on Call

"That's good enough. Set him down."

Reluctantly, I unhooked Holmes' arm from my shoulders and lowered him to the damp floor of the cellar. "This is no place for an injured man," I said angrily. "He'll take cold."

"Will or won't, it makes no difference to me. But you do as you're ordered and maybe you'll get back here before too long."

"Back here? Where am I going?"

"Baker Street. You're going to get me inside long enough to build a bonfire. Not even Sherlock Holmes can make a case in court if all the evidence has gone to ash."


	3. Calling Foul

In the rough coat and cap that had been Holmes' disguise my captor peacocked in front of every shop window we passed, admiring his reflection. "Don't I look just like the great detective on the prowl!" he crowed. "With you along the old lady won't even ask me why I've come."

I thought of Holmes, shivering his life away back on that cellar floor, and kept my tongue between my teeth. But as we turned on to Baker Street the ruffian grew sober, and caught my arm. "Remember," he hissed, "Ain't no one can find him in time but you."


	4. A Social Call

"Why, Doctor, I didn't realize you were going to pay a visit! Will you be staying for supper?"

"Yes," I said, seeing a sudden opportunity to get one person at least clear of this tangle. "Yes, I think so. And if you've not already started cooking, I'd love it if you could fetch us a nice beefsteak and some oysters." I pulled two guineas from my pocket and put them in Mrs. Hudson's hand, hoping that I sounded natural.

She gave me a sharp look, and then looked to my silent companion, who nodded.

"Just let me get my bonnet."


	5. Beck and Call

Seventeen steps and a turn down the passage, and all I could think of was how unlikely it was that my tormentor would leave me alive when he was done. But when the rascal gaped at the drifts of paper cluttering every horizontal surface of the sitting room I almost felt like laughing. Almost.

He dug the gun into my ribs again. "How do I know where to look for what I'm after?" he asked furiously.

"You don't," I replied. "And neither do I, unless you tell me what it is."

He shook his head. "Better to burn it all."


	6. Call to Action

I overstuffed the grate deliberately, smothering the flames with too many newspapers at once and playing up my nervousness until at last the villain gave a growl of impatience at my incompetence. "Get out of the way," he ordered, and picked up the poker to mend the fire and give it air.

I backed up to the scarred deal table and felt behind me for a flask with a glass stopper. Without looking I couldn't tell which one was which, but I knew one of them held vitriol.

Now if only I could harden my heart enough to use it.


	7. Close Call

As the acid splashed across his hands he dropped both poker and gun and fell to his knees with a cry of such pain that for a moment I stood frozen, appalled to know that I could so far forget my oath as a healer. Then I ran for the bedroom pitcher, glad to feel the heft of it and know the cool water would help to undo the damage I had wrought.

But when I poured the water over his blackening limbs he lunged up at me, scrabbling for a hold, smearing blood and vitriol on my bared throat.


	8. Call for Help

My back was pressed against the fire place, my shoulders pinned against the wood mantel, my legs beginning to feel far too warm for comfort. But all that was as nothing to the horrid sensation of his hands clawing at me, or the dimming of my senses as he managed to begin throttling me. I fumbled for the jack-knife I knew was near my shoulder, felt my fingers brush against the envelopes it held.

A sudden clang of metal against bone. My attacker fell away, freeing me. Wiggins was standing there, holding a dented tea tray, Mrs. Hudson behind him.


	9. Call and Call Again

"It ain't Mr. Holmes is it?" the boy asked, pale under his freckles. Mrs. Hudson was babbling about a constable who wouldn't come and two more of the Irregulars were peeping past her elbow. I stumbled to the nearest chair and collapsed, trying to force air past the sting and bruises that ringed my neck. There were so many things to be done. Take the unconscious man to the scullery and put his hands under the pump. Neutralize the vitriol that had fallen on the carpet. Put out the fire. Call for the police. Reassure Mrs. Hudson. Rescue Holmes.

Breathe.


	10. Returned Call

Wiggins, as soon as he understood my whispers, proved himself to be the lieutenant that Holmes called him, sending the other boys scurrying to deal with the papers and the carpet while he and Mrs. Hudson between them dragged our prisoner away to be sluiced down. I stumbled to my feet, meaning to collect Holmes' stash of morphine. He'd give them no trouble if he were drugged insensible. But the room spun and I had to sit again.

A hand nudged mine, holding a dripping towel. "Here, Doctor," said Alfie. "It's _my_ turn to tell _you_ to wash your neck."


	11. Duty Recalled

I would have liked to have police protection for Mrs. Hudson, but explanations would have taken too long, and no doubt a stolid constable would have felt obliged to arrest me and Wiggins for assault as soon as he saw our victim. Wiggins caught my fear, for he left two of the largest boys to guard the prisoner, and wasted no time on dissuading the others from coming with us.

Never have I wanted so much to go home to my wife's arms! But rescuing Holmes was the first imperative, so urgent I dared consider nothing – and no one – else.


	12. Call a Cab

A sovereign silenced the cabdriver's protestations, and a second coin urged him to go as quickly as he dared. Alfie's green eyes shone above the blankets he held piled high in his arms, and the rest of the Irregulars whooped with delight as we sped recklessly over the cobbles. They seemed to think that we'd already won the day. The villain had been vanquished, the rescue party was on the way, how could they possibly be denied a happy ending?

I knew better. Finding Holmes alive would be only half the battle. _Keeping_ him alive would be another thing entirely.


	13. Call it Courage

He wasn't where I'd left him.

I stared at the bare earthen floor and wondered if I'd misremembered somehow, had led the chase to the wrong cellar after all. But no, there was my medical bag, lying open on the crate where I had left it. I waved the boys behind me to silence and started down the narrow stairs, listening hard for the rattle of his breath.

How he'd got into the farthest corner under his own power I still don't know. I saw the gleam of metal in his hand and called up to Wiggins. "Fetch a light!"


	14. When I'm Calling You

"Easy, Holmes," I said, wishing that my voice did not betray the damage that had been done my throat. I did not sound like myself even to my own ears. He brought the amputation knife up and waved it unsteadily in my direction, and then gasped with the pain of the effort. I held my hands out to show myself harmless. "I mean you no harm. I'm Watson. Do you not know me?"

"Watson?" His lips moved, but he had no breath to spare for words. He peered out from his refuge, blinking in the candlelight, then suddenly relaxed. "Watson."


	15. Call the Tune

The moment the knife fell from his fingers I leapt forward to catch his arms, knowing he would fall too if I did not. "Spread out one of the blankets," I ordered the boys. "Wiggins, help me lower him. Carefully now! Alfie, hold the candle out of the way."

My audience watched in horrified silence as I cut Holmes' shirt away. The bruising was extensive, and I could see his chest was flailed by the way one section of ribs sank upon each breath.

"He's dying," someone said softly.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," said I.


	16. Call Cadence

Despite the morphine injection, it was clear that each breath was torment to Holmes. I lost no time in wrapping his chest to support the damaged ribs, and then wrapped him again in a blanket from head to foot, hoping the warmth would bring him ease.

I fetched him up the stairs myself, as carefully as I could, and found the boys had readied the last blanket as a carrysling, with four of them on each side. "Back to Baker Street?" Wiggins asked.

"My house is closer," I said, as I laid Holmes down.

"Right then." Wiggins ordered. "On three..."


	17. Call and Response

No sooner had we reached the main streets than Wiggins recruited some stout men to take the younger boys' places on the stretcher. The boys immediately transferred their attentions to me, and between old injuries and new I confess myself glad of the support..

"Why is he so gray?" asked Alfie.

"Hypoxia," I answered. "Not enough oxygen in the blood."

"Are you going to put it in with a needle, then?"

"He needs to breathe it." I remembered, suddenly, a lazy discussion with Holmes one summer night and felt new hope. "Alfie, how fast can you get to Harley Street?"


	18. House Call

When Mary saw the cavalcade she threw open wide our door and directed the stretcher bearers into the parlor. The maid she sent upstairs with two boys to dismantle a bed and bring it down, and the cook she set to work making beef tea for the patient and sandwiches for the boys. Me she diverted for a bare moment, catching my hand to assure herself that I was not too badly hurt.

"You'll want Anstruther's help," she said firmly. "I'll send for him straight away. Who is the patient, and does his family know he's here?"

"My God! Mycroft..."


	19. Call in the Expert

"You sent for _Palmer_?" Anstruther exclaimed as he helped me deal with Holmes' injuries. "He's the worst charlatan on Harley Street! According to him two gallons of oxygen inhaled thrice a day will cure everything from hangnail to phthisis!"

"As long as it cures hypoxia," I said. "Holmes told me once that Palmer's process for making the gas is chemically sound. It does make pure oxygen, and in large quantities. That's all I care about."

"Large quantities? How often do you mean to use it?"

"Just once," I said. "But I don't mean to stop until _Holmes _tells me to."


	20. Called Wrong

Palmer would have liked to offer his expertise as well as his apparatus, but the latter was expensive enough, especially given the quantities of the gas continuous use would require.

Knowing that fire and oxygen mix all too well, I asked Mary to have bricks heated in the oven. We'd wrap them in flannel and set them around Holmes to keep him warm once the temperatures dropped at nightfall.

"And what shall you do for light?" she asked.

I blinked at her, unable to grasp the question for far too long.

"Never mind, dear," she said. "I'll think of something."


	21. Call of a Drum

"I know this will hurt, Holmes," I said as I maneuvered him into a kind of awkward embrace. "But you've got to cough, and take the deepest breaths you can. We've got to get the detritus out of your lungs."

He nodded on my shoulder and I began, as gently as I dared, to thump his back. As the coughs began his whole frame shook, and his arms tightened around me, clinging for support. But I kept at it, listening hard for any ominous change in the sound. It was too early for pneumonia, but not too soon for blood.


	22. Called to Account

At long last Holmes' color improved, and his breathing settled into a pattern that while still harsh, was steady enough to allow him to take something resembling sleep. Anstruther lost no time in ordering me to go and see to my own hurts, promising that he'd stay with the patient.

But when I reached the dining room I found Inspector Gregson of the Yard sitting at the table, turning a formal looking document in his hands. He stood and faced me, reluctant but determined. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I have here a warrant for your arrest."

"And the charge?"

"Attempted murder."


	23. Call the Lawyer

Gregson allowed me a few moments to deal with necessities, but suggested that I would be better off facing the judge with the traces of the day's battles still on my clothes and face.

"Merridew's got himself a clever solicitor," he told me. "Put in a complaint against you and the boy almost as soon as he reached the Yard. I've been careful not to ask which of the lads in your kitchen used that tray, but _you_ were named. I've got to take you in, and hope you can make bail."

"That won't be a problem," said Mycroft Holmes.


	24. Called Away

"Shouldn't you stay with your brother?" I asked Mycroft, as we rode shoulder to shoulder in the odiferous police wagon.

"We can safely entrust Sherlock to the mercies of your neighbor and your wife," said he, calmly. "But neither of them can influence the judge on your behalf as I can."

"I did throw that vitriol," I admitted; I would not lie to him.

"Did you mean murder?"

"No. Only to disarm." I remembered the irreparable damage to the villain's hands and the horrible appropriateness of my inadvertent pun caught me betwixt hysteria and rising nausea. "Oh, God, I'm tired."


	25. Slumber Calling

There were a dozen cases waiting to be heard before mine, anxious families and hardened toughs lining the hard benches outside the judge's chambers. Mycroft steered me into one of the corners, beckoning Gregson over to stand watch. "This may take some time," he warned me. "Best sleep if you can."

"Sleep?" Gregson echoed, flat astonished. "How's he meant to sleep?"

"He is a soldier," Mycroft answered imperiously. "And if this is a battlefield, the guns have not yet begun to fire. A little sleep will help restore his wits."

I did not join in the argument. Mycroft was right.


	26. Called to the Dock

The lawyer who had laid the complaint against me was quick to describe the injuries which had sent his client to the hospital, and quicker to dismiss the blisters still on my neck as a last minute fabrication.

The third time he interrupted my tale, he turned to the judge and said in unctuous tones, "What nonsense, milord! Why if the court will see fit to impound the papers he offers as excuse I will personally see to proving that there is not one _scrap_ among them which pertains at all to my client!"

"So _that's_ your game," growled Mycroft.


	27. Collect Call

Mycroft believed that the judge had been suborned, for although his arguments had prevented his brother's papers from being seized, the bail was set so very high it was clear that I would be spending at least one night in the cells. Then the door at the back of the court opened and a tall, familiar figure stepped into the room.

The judge dropped his pen as he rose to his feet. "Lord Holdhurst!" he exclaimed. "What brings you here?"

The future Premier of England nodded to Mycroft and then to me. "I've come to return a favor," said he.


	28. Recall

I knew I would need my strength for the coming night, so I napped in Lord Holdhurst's carriage, leaving Mycroft to tell the tale and arrange for whatever protection might be had for Holmes' empty rooms. It was a mistake. In my dreams Holmes still lay bereft of comfort and warmth in the dark cellar, the blood pooling dangerously under his skin. In my dreams he gasped his life away while I was desperately battling a conflagration of paper and acid and choking smoke in the ruins of Baker Street.

I was never so glad to be shaken awake again.


	29. Called Home

"Thank goodness you're here," Anstruther's tone of distress wrung at my heart.

"He's worse?" I asked, impatient to see for myself, but knowing it was better to consult with my young colleague in the hall.

"Feverish – when he heard that you'd been arrested he tried to get out of the bed and he may have aggravated whatever damage was done to his spleen. And his lungs sound worse, but he _refuses_ to try to cough for me." Anstruther ran a hand through already disordered hair. "He wants morphine. Says if he's going to die he'd rather do it in comfort."


	30. Called the Fool

The moment I touched his forehead his eyes flew open. "Watson," he rasped, clutching at my sleeve. "How long have I?"

"You're not dying, Holmes," I reassured him.

"You think I am," he countered fretfully. "You can't fool me. I heard Mycroft's voice."

"What has your brother's voice to do with dying?" I asked, beginning my examination.

"You never sent for him the last time," Holmes said. "That's how I knew. Ouch!"

"Sorry. Knew what, old fellow?"

"Knew I hadn't really fooled you." He tugged on my hand. "No experts this time, Watson. If I _am_ dying, I want you."


	31. Farewell to a Caller

While Mycroft visited with his brother, I took the opportunity to thank Lord Holdhurst again for my deliverance and see him on his way. "I did not look to impose upon you in this fashion."

"Percy certainly did when he wrote to you, asking for help when that treaty went astray," the statesman corrected me gently as he collected his hat and stick. "You came to his rescue then; I could do no less."

I shook my head. "That was Holmes' doing, not mine."

He lay a gloved hand for a moment on my shoulder. "Do not underestimate yourself, Doctor."


	32. Call the Odds

Clearing Holmes' lungs again exhausted him; he scarcely needed the dose I gave him to slip into sleep. I rose and took the towel from my shoulder, meaning to go into the hall to examine it for signs of blood in the sputum. But Mycroft, who had been watching, stopped me.

"Will that torment be necessary often?" he asked, his voice shaking.

"Every two hours," I answered softly. "Less often as he heals. But it is our best means to avoid pneumonia."

"Pneumonia?" Mycroft's voice grew sharp with old loss. "Truthfully, now: what are his chances?"

"Better than they were."


	33. Night Calls

I sent Anstruther home. He would be saddled with both our practices come morning and with the scarlet fever epidemic he had had no more sleep than I the night before. Mycroft left reluctantly, despite the commission he had received from his brother to retrieve the papers that Merridew had wished to destroy and turn them over to the Yard. Wiggins and the older boys left too, apologizing for the need to rise early and earn their meagre livings. But young Alfie stayed the night, taking turns with Mary to bring me coffee and run hot bricks from the stove.


	34. Called Names

The third time I woke Holmes and forced him to sit up against me and clear his lungs he swore at me between coughs with such vehemence that I might have taken offense had I not been just as abusive to the men who had tended me while I lay invalid and miserable in Peshawar, caught between half-healed wounds and deadly fever. It was a better sign than tears, though I did not tell him as much, remembering the desperate lengths to which I had gone in trying to persuade those patient healers to allow me to die in peace.


	35. Let Me Call You Sweetheart

As the morning light began to turn the windows into grey rectangles Mary stopped to ask if I still needed the mirror on the chair that had reflected light into the sickroom all the night long. "I'm afraid it's at hazard every time we bring you another brick," she said. "That poor lad is reeling with exhaustion."

"I can see now," I assured her, taking her into my arms and breathing deep of the scent of her hair. "Have you had any sleep, my love?"

"I haven't dared," she answered, clinging to me with sudden urgency. "I nearly lost you."


	36. Called As Seen

When I had finished reassuring my wife and sent her off to sleep a while, I went back to my patient, only to find that Holmes' eyes were open, glittering in the slowly increasing light. He studied me with languid interest. "What did she mean?" he asked, his voice soft with confusion. "Are you lost?"

"It's nothing, Holmes," I told him, checking his fever and pulse. "I'm right here." I did not think him awake enough yet for the tale.

But his gaze sharpened suddenly and he lifted a hand to touch the bruises on my neck. "You've been hurt."


	37. Call it the Truth

"It's nothing, Holmes," I said again. "A few bruises and a blister or two. I'll be all right."

"But who? Merridew?"

"Yes."

He tried to sit up, and couldn't, not with my hands on his shoulders. "I'll see to him, Watson, I'll make him pay..."

"No!" I said sharply. "No, Holmes. There is no need. He won't be hurting anyone again, I've seen to that." The bile rose again in my throat. "And anyway, he didn't try to strangle me until after I'd thrown vitriol on his hands."

Holmes stopped struggling, staring at me as if I were a stranger.


	38. No Call for Pride

"I was unarmed. He had your revolver – and the poker from the fire." Somehow the excuses echoed even emptier in the morning twilight than they had in the courtroom. "I wanted to get back to you. I was afraid..." But no, that I couldn't say, not when the danger was still hovering. "When I went to neutralize the acid he attacked me. If it hadn't been for Wiggins..."_ I would have died, and Holmes too, unless some kindly Fate had sent a stranger into that cold cellar in time._ I faced the truth. "It was a stupid thing to do."


	39. Judgment Call

Holmes closed his eyes and sank back against the pillows, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he held back a fresh round of coughing.

I sank onto the chair by the bed, waiting, although I did not know for what. Had I hit the man with a fist, or shot him with a gun, perhaps, there would have been few consequences. But once the news of my action reached the newspapers I expected disaster. Who would ever wish to trust a physician capable of such deliberate cruelty?

"It must have worked," Holmes whispered, at last. "He didn't shoot you."


	40. No Call for Shame

How like Holmes to disregard the world's opinion if the end he desired had been achieved! "No. He didn't shoot me," I agreed. "And I reached you in time."

"Then it was not stupid," Holmes declared imperiously, although the strength of the fiat was somewhat diminished by his lack of breath. He opened one eye to look at me, a smile flickering at the corners of his mouth, and went on, a few words at a time. "Neutralizing the acid... perhaps... but not using it. Or were you... merely trying to... save Mrs. Hudson... the price... of a new carpet?"


	41. Call for Endurance

It was just as well that Holmes resorted early to the sardonic humor I knew so well, for it stood him in much better stead than despair would have during the ordeal which followed. Asafœtida helped keep his lungs from filling, and the oxygen therapy worked better than I had hoped. But the pain made even bedpans tolerable and if he grew to loathe the sight of me in my shirtsleeves, the towel on my shoulder, come to make him cough again, he hid it well.

"Don't tell me," he said, on the third dawn. "Time to burp the baby."


	42. Call in the Children

When I had to attend to matters took me from the parlor, Mary would sit with Holmes, and on the rare occasions when we were both drawn away we had the maid and Alfie stand watch and come to fetch me should Holmes require anything. Alfie because he insisted upon the duty, and the maid because no nine-year-old boy should be left alone with an oxygen apparatus. Not that a fourteen-year-old girl was much of an improvement! I once came back to find them both jumping about, trying to catch a moth, while Holmes watched with amusement from his bed.


	43. Visitor Calling

Mycroft Holmes came by every evening, as uncomfortable in attendance on the sick man as his brother was in playing patient. They both of them dodged their concerns by turning their regard on me and pointing out all of the signs of my growing exhaustion. I retaliated on the fourth day by teaching Mycroft how to clear Holmes' lungs, sure that he was the one other man on the planet who could override any objection, and then went to bed.

In retrospect I should have warned him that Holmes was beginning to cough up old blood from the bruised lung.


	44. Called Out of Bed

"This is perfectly predictable given the known damage. Look at the color of it. Were it fresh bleeding the spots would be brighter, more like the shade you see in a case of phthisis. This is the bruise in the lung sloughing off damaged cells, much the way a bruise under the skin turns green and dissipates."

"But ..." Mycroft frowned, so I turned my energies toward my patient.

"Holmes, how many anatomy classes did you sit through? How many hours did you spend in the dissection rooms? You _know_ how bruises behave."

"You're sure, Watson? I'm not dying?"

"No."


	45. Called Out of Doors

I got Mycroft far enough down the street to be sure that his sharp-eared brother wasn't going to be listening before I gave free rein to my temper. "What on _earth_ do you think you were doing, alarming him like that?"

"What?" He recoiled as if struck by a blow.

"If you cannot keep yourself from morbid imaginings, so help me, I'll bar you from visiting. Do you not understand? He is not out of danger yet! And if you keep putting the idea that he is dying into his head he's likely to do so, just to oblige you!"


	46. Beyond Recall

"Sherlock was but six years old when our mother died. She promised us that she wouldn't, but she did, in great pain and fighting for every breath while our father made us kneel by the bed and recite prayers that I knew even then were worse than useless. Our sister succumbed soon after her, but Father was so busy wailing about his love for his lost wife that he never sent for the doctor, not even when Sherlock took the fever too. That was left to me.

Perhaps, if I had done so sooner, things would have turned out differently."


	47. Call of Memory

My anger drained out of my boots. "Differently?" I echoed, not expecting an answer. Living with Sherlock Holmes had taught me that there were some questions for which even he did not desire to uncover the answers. But Mycroft was made of sterner stuff than his brother, in some ways. He nodded.

"Half an hour earlier and I would have caught Dr. Lewis in his surgery. As it was I had to chase him down on foot through three villages. By the time we reached home our sister had slipped into her final coma and Sherlock and I were orphaned."


	48. Recall the Past

"Your father had the fever as well?" I asked quietly.

"He was cold enough when we found him in the pond," Mycroft answered quickly, bitterly, but then his face changed, and for a moment I saw the grief-stricken thirteen-year-old boy buried within the man. "Perhaps." The words came slower now. "Perhaps. Delirium might explain much. I hadn't thought of that."

I lay a hand on his shoulder. "A man in the grip of brain fever cannot be held responsible," I said sententiously, wishing I had better words to offer. "Except, perhaps, by those for whom he should have been responsible."


	49. Call of Fraternal Duty

"It was long ago, and cannot be changed," Mycroft said, in a tone that told me that he was ready to rebuild his walls and defend the past again.

"I doubt your brother would have survived had you not gone for help," I offered.

But he made as if to brush the comfort away. "I was only a messenger, and not a very speedy one. I had hoped to be of more use in this instance," he added, quietly.

"Oh, you are," I said. "You have just not yet learned why physicians consult with each other and not the patient."


	50. Calling for Quiet

I hesitated to describe which symptoms should alarm Mycroft, knowing that his brother would likely discern any change in his demeanor. "The main thing," I said instead, "is to keep him quiet and resting long enough to allow any damage to heal itself. As long as we can avoid pneumonia – and I think we've a good chance – he should mend. Just put your energies towards finding ways to help him tolerate bedrest."

"Bedrest," Mycroft repeated, and studied me a moment. "And if you should require him to testify in your defence three days hence?"

I shook my head. "I won't."


	51. Morning Call

Having sent Mycroft home for the night I took my place on the couch near Holmes' bed once again, wondering how I would keep my new knowledge of his past from showing on my face. I slept badly, the screams and babbles of feverish men along the ward at Peshawar mingling with dreams of my friend at his mother's deathbed and myself not much older at my own.

Thank God for Alfie, who woke us both come morning by singing rude nursery rhymes and extolling the praises of porridge with fresh milk and honey on it to disguise the taste!


	52. Calling In Assistance

Mycroft had insisted that we should bring in a night nurse. "I know just the man," he'd said, dismissing my apprehensions. "Sherlock can't monopolize your time much longer in any case or your practice will fall to flinders." He did not add that Holmes would need someone if the trial went badly.

Much to my dismay the "nurse" who appeared on my doorstep that day was no youngster, but a man who had spent thirty years as valet to a peer of the realm. "I cannot afford..." I began, but was waved silent.

"This pays back a debt I owe."


	53. Calling Upon Patients

Anstruther was all too glad to be able to return his attention to only his own patient list, no matter that it had been supplemented by several names of people who preferred a physician of less notoriety.

But for all the patients I had lost, I'd gained another, if only temporarily. The young newspaperman who thought to worm an interview from me pretended digestive troubles, and I was entirely too happy to prescribe -- and administer -- a dose of salts. Something to tell Holmes about, I thought, and found myself unbearably glad that I would get the chance to do so.


	54. Call for a Servant

I returned from my rounds to find Holmes freshly shaved beneath the oxygen mask, dozing in an expanse of fresh linen. All of the medical clutter of the past few days had been organized onto a single table, and even the oxygen machine glowed with polish. It must be confessed that for a moment I felt quite superfluous.

Mycroft's emissary stepped forward. "He's been waiting for you, doctor," Martin Bunter said, collecting my hat and my medical bag before effacing himself.

"Of course I have!" grumbled Holmes, without opening his eyes. "Go away, Bunter, and bother my brother instead of me."


	55. Called to Consider

"Make the best of things, Holmes. How often have you ever had the chance to observe a gentleman's gentleman in action?"

"It's still insufferable," Holmes said. "How did you tolerate it, all those months when you were an invalid?"

"Badly," I replied. "Although having to be put back into bed because I hadn't the strength to stand was far worse than submitting to being fussed over."

He scowled, but I could see that he had taken the implicit warning to heart. "I don't like having a nursemaid," he insisted.

I couldn't help but laugh. "A nurse_maid_ would be far worse."


	56. Call for Inspection

I was not surprised that Holmes could persuade Bunter to part with the secret of a perfect shoeshine; nor that he would insist that Alfie too must be the happy student of a skill that would feed a boy more honestly than most professions available to anyone of his age and station. And from there, of course, it was only sensible that my own boots be used for practice, and Mary's too, until every scrap of shoeleather in the house was gleaming.

But that Holmes himself would polish my best shoes for the court, despite the pain, _that_ I never expected.


	57. Roll Call

Reluctantly, but resolutely, I began to make provisions lest my day in court would find me remanded to the Assizes and held in prison. To Mary I gave letters, authorizing her to act in my stead, and full access to all my accounts in my absence. To Mycroft Holmes I gave all the papers and notes I possessed concerning his brother's cases, since Sherlock Holmes was not yet in any condition to keep them safe. To Bunter I gave meticulous instructions, and several demonstrations as well, concerning his patient's care.

But I could not think of what to give to Holmes.


	58. Calling Upon Friends

The preparatory visit from the barrister left me filled with apprehension. Wiggins's testimony would put his freedom at risk, even if he could be found, and Mrs. Hudson, while respectable, was female and would therefore be accused of hysteria. Character witnesses were what I required. I drew up a short list of names, that witnesses might be summoned; men whom I thought might remember me kindly. I hoped that some of them might be in the city, willing and able to testify on my behalf.

But I dared not include the name of the one man who knew me best.


	59. Relentless Call

As the moment approached when I must place my fate into the hands of the law, I found myself suspended between confidence and despair, and in that curious state where the most minuscule of details are magnified beyond their usual significance. I found myself entranced by the sound of the girl singing in the scullery as she cleaned, and moved beyond speech by the warmth of my wife's hand as it rested upon my shoulder. For Holmes's sake I counted the steps of each staircase I climbed, and wondered if this unforgiving clarity was how he always saw the world.


	60. Called Through the Darkness

Holmes was restless that last night. His fever was up, and his cough so persistent that after other measures had failed, I introduced the vapor of hemlock leaves to his oxygen supply, and increased, reluctantly, the dose of morphine. By morning he was able to sleep. I left him then, under Alfie's guard, while Bunter did his best with razor and soap to transform me into a gentleman worthy of the creases he had already put into my trousers.

But nothing anyone could do would chase away the fears from the eyes that looked back at me from my mirror.


	61. A Higher Calling

Mary came with me. It would have been cruel to leave her behind, with both our fortunes hanging in the balance. But I was not glad of her presence until she asked after Holmes, and listened with perfect understanding as I enumerated all his symptoms and spun out wild and wilder theories concerning possible treatments Anstruther might undertake. When at last we reached the courthouse I helped her down, and then reached for my medical bag out of habit. It was not there, of course. I turned to go inside, feeling as if I had left my arm at home.


	62. Call the Court to Order

I was familiar with the different moods of the court - as Holmes's compatriot I had been called to testify in cases both humble and spectacular - and yet I had never seen such hostility from the gallery. There were hisses and catcalls as I entered the room; I swear I would not have felt safe to leave Mary in the audience had it not been for the arrival of Lestrade and a half-dozen constables who looked as if they had had no more sleep than I had myself.

I took my place.

The jury filed in.

The judge arrived.

It began.


	63. Call of His Profession

The Clerk of the Court had just begun to read out the charges against me when a scuffle at the back of the room drew all our attention. I turned too, and caught sight of Merridew, sitting in the seats reserved for witnesses. His face was pale and damp with sweat, and the bandages on the hand I could see were becoming stained by exudations. Had he spent his money on lawyers and not on a decent doctor? Again I felt the lack of my medical bag: the man was obviously in pain.

But there was nothing I could do.


	64. Call for Another One

The bailiff appeared from the clamour by the door, towing Wiggins by the shoulder of a much-too-large dinner jacket. "Boy says he's meant to be here, m'lord," he said, apologetically, to the judge.

The judge leaned forward, examining the pawnshop scarecrow who had invaded his domain. "And who might you be, boy?"

"Jim Wiggins, your worship," the lad replied, coming to join me at the bar. I could see the line which soap and water had failed to cross upon his neck, but where he had scrubbed, he had scrubbed hard. "I'm what the newspapers has been calling the 'co-conspirator'."


	65. Call for Faith

While the lawyers argued over what was to be done about the new arrival and the gallery grumbled, I attempted to set Wiggins's fifth-hand finery into better order. "You'd have done better to stay away, you know."

"Not me. I like to be able to sleep at night." He cocked his head to one side. "Which it looks like you ain't done enough of. How's Mister Holmes?"

"He'll do." I did not qualify that bare bones statement; I did not want to drive the light of hope from Wiggins's eyes. I found a smile, "And so shall we, I trust."


	66. Call a Spade a Spade

The Barrister returned to us, his face set in a frown. "This is all irregular," he said, "but as I'd rather not waste more time on this matter than necessary, I've convinced the court that both of you should stand together." The frown grew deeper as he looked down his nose at Wiggins. "You'll have to enter a plea. The charge is conspiracy to commit assault with malice aforethought."

"What's that mean?" Wiggins asked, scratching his ear.

"Did you hit that man deliberately? Will you plead guilty or not guilty?"

"How do I plead, 'he bloody well had it coming'?"


	67. Called Important

Whilst the judge ascertained the neutrality of the jurors and dismissed the three who admitted to having read "A Study in Scarlet", from service, I found myself struggling to keep my attention upon the matter at hand. I thought about Holmes, and wondered if he would cooperate with Bunter when it came time for his lungs to be cleared, and fought my own impatient desire to pull my watch from its pocket again and again. How distant breakfast seemed, and how far away my warm bed!

But then the testimony for the prosecution began, and that I could not ignore.


	68. Calumny

As the witnesses for the prosecution spun their tales, I made sure to gather the back of Wiggins's jacket into my hand, as much to give myself something to grip as to keep him from starting up in indignation. Merridew, it seemed, was an innocent, caught up in a minor indiscretion thanks to an absent-minded business associate and unscrupulously pursued by a mercenary detective all too willing to manufacture evidence to make the case worse, and then mercilessly attacked by me and Wiggins when it became clear that he would not hesitate to reveal Holmes's extortionate demands to the world.


	69. Call for Sympathy

At last Merridew took the stand, and said that I, not he, had been carrying the revolver during our trek to Baker Street, and that I'd forced him to identify the papers which would clear his name so that they could be burned. He'd used the poker to knock the gun from my hand; I'd used the vitriol for spite. He admitted to attacking me then, saying he'd no other choice. He hadn't known I'd an accomplice in reserve.

The shouts from the gallery encouraged him to display his injuries for the jury, and to my everlasting horror, he complied.


	70. Uncalled For

I did not need to see the patches of raw, suppurating flesh, nor catch the sickly-sweet whiff of putrescence as Merridew held up his arms for the world to see, to know that the evidence of his wounds would draw down indignant cries and force several of the jurymen to recoil in disgust. It takes practice to view such sights with equanimity, to measure the red streaks climbing to the elbows and gauge the necessity of amputation with an objective mind.

God save me from ever learning how to accept calmly that such damage was done by my own hand.


	71. Called in the Press

The ordeal of having his arms rebandaged left Merridew unfit for cross-examination; the judge declared a recess, therefore, that he might recover, and we all might eat our midday meal. Our status uncertain, Wiggins and I were led to a small room, where we shared the sandwiches Mary had packed for me under the eye of a stolid constable.

The window was ajar, and from the street outside we could hear the blue-pawed newsboys hawking the first hasty editions transcribing the morning's testimony. "Holmes a Blackmailer!" they cried, and I realized we two were not the only ones on trial.


	72. Called Unscrupulous

When we returned to the courtroom my barrister took the opportunity to cross-examine Merridew. He did his best to shake the lies, but as the witness was still pale and unwell, the gallery disapproved, and the judge rebuked him for badgering the man. An offer to postpone the questions until later, so long as Merridew remained available to answer them, was accepted with a sneer. "Now or later makes no difference. Do your worst, Smythe; I'll be here. I don't keep a doctor in my pocket to make excuses for me."

This time, it was Wiggins who held _me_ back.


	73. Called on Behalf Of

The testimony in my defense began with character witnesses, most of whom made me sound very dull and reliable when questioned by my own barrister, and something of a reckless gambler under cross-examination. Thurston, at least, grew impatient with that line of insinuation and pointed out testily that while I sometimes lost at billiards I never failed to pay my debts, and it would be ridiculous to point out my losses without also mentioning that I just as frequently won. I can't say I was sorry for the reminder.

But at last my own turn came to tell my tale.


	74. Called to Testify

From the witness stand I could see my supporters scattered throughout the audience. Mary with her chin held high; Stamford with his spectacles set askew and an air of utter distraction; Lestrade blue-chinned and heavy-eyed, braced for battle. I could see the gallery too, where Merridew's supporters scowled their disapproval and whispered things to each other in response to my words with nods of eloquent disbelief. The reporters took notes frantically, sending runners back to their editors with pages of scrawls to be printed for the delight the crowd outside even as I finished my account of what had happened.


	75. Called a Liar

"A fascinating tale," the prosecutor drawled as he exchanged places with my barrister. "But I should expect that from a wordsmith like yourself. You have quite the talent for spinning material out of very thin cloth." He waved a copy of "A Study in Scarlet" before me. "This effort includes several unlikely assertions."

"What I witnessed I reported as accurately as discretion would allow."

"And the American section?"

"Pure fiction," I allowed, "but my editors wanted it."

"Then you _can_ lie upon request!" He pounced like a cat after a mouse.

"Not well," I said wryly. "Have you _read_ it?"


	76. Catcalls

The laughter which swept around the room was countered by a swell of angry exclamations from the gallery, and it was some time before order could be restored. Indeed, until one of the more malevolent hecklers found himself bracketed by constabulary blue there was little chance of anyone else being heard. His threats made little difference to me, but Mary put her arm around Mrs. Hudson protectively. I endured the lecture from the judge on the folly of treating my situation lightly, but it was Mary's pale face which made me resolve to put a firmer rein upon my tongue.


	77. Calling Upon Patience

The cross-examination continued, and the difficulty of keeping my temper was further complicated by my deepening weariness. No, I had not conspired with anyone. No, I had not heard of Merridew before that day. No, I had not held the revolver. Yes, I had sent Mrs. Hudson away, but no, it was not to clear the house of witnesses. Yes, I had used the acid, but no, I had not done so out of spite. Yes, I had Sherlock Holmes under my care; no, he could not leave his bed. It was impossible.

"Not impossible, old fellow, but distinctly inconvenient."


	78. Call it Poor Judgment

"Holmes, you idiot!" I began.

He raised an eyebrow, but only stood, leaning on Bunter, to wait until I had finished berating him. Setting a flame to the last ragged shreds of my temper did little to warm the ball of icy fear which had settled like a mis-swallowed lump of meat into my chest. His color was poor, his breathing was labored, and I could see sweat breaking out on his brow even from this distance.

"Have you lost _all_ regard for your health?" I finished.

"Not yet," said he, placatingly. "But I confess a greater regard for yours."


	79. Call for Consideration

The piping sound of young voices outside the door heralded the Irregulars, and my Barrister leaped to his feet to beg a recess before the judge could have an apoplexy.

"I will not have this court turned into a circus!" came the reply.

But Holmes, whose manner was such that even the rowdies in the gallery held silent so as to hear him, held up a hand. "You have accommodated Mr. Merridew's medical difficulties for the sake of his testimony, sir," he said, though it took no little effort. "Surely, in all justice, you can do the same for mine?"


	80. Call in the Reinforcements

"Your honor," I said, through gritted teeth. "Sherlock Holmes has a flailed chest, a deeply bruised lung, and possible damage to his spleen. He cannot stay upright without pain; the longer he attempts to do so, the greater the risk of pleurisy or pneumonia. I have every confidence in his eventual recovery, but only if he is kept on complete bedrest for these first critical weeks."

"We know that, doctor," Alfie's voice rang out from the doorway. He was burdened with pillows and blankets, and the boys behind him were carrying pieces of wood. "That's why we brung the bed!"


	81. Call it Inescapable

The parade of street Arabs into the court finished with two of the largest boys bearing the mattress and Anstruther struggling under the burden of Palmer's Patent Oxygen Producing Apparatus. At that point the judge threw up his hands and declared that if the defense in its wisdom thought that my best interests were served by foolish charades we could have our delay and welcome to it. This decision was met with loud jeers from the gallery, but with cheers from the reporters with their notebooks and my friends. I bowed to the inevitable. Sherlock Holmes had come to stay.


	82. Call for Air

Freed of the obligation to remain in the witness stand, I took myself hastily across the room to help Bunter bring Holmes down to the place where the boys were clearing a space. His air of supreme confidence might fool everyone else within eyesight, but I could see that his strength was failing him. By the time we got him lying on the mattress, to await assembly of the bed, his complexion was nearly as grey as his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Anstruther said, as we got the oxygen started. "But he _would_ come, with us or without us."

"I know."


	83. Call the Police

It cannot have been a simple matter for any man as private as Holmes to allow himself to be the center of a spectacle. Despite the recess, the audience lingered, and offered unsolicited advice as I took Holmes through the uncomfortable ritual of clearing his lungs. The Irregulars took it upon themselves to answer back, at least until Wiggins distributed boxed ears and told them to mind their language in front of the ladies.

I settled Holmes at last against the pillows and smoothed the blanket over him. "Do you need anything else?" I asked.

He nodded, eyes closed. "Lestrade."


	84. Call on the Expert

"Me?" Lestrade drew his brows together. "It was Gregson investigated Merridew's complaint." Yes, and Gregson who had testified, however reluctantly, for the prosecution, although I would always be grateful to him for doing so in such excessively dull terms that both lawyers had been quick to leave him go.

"I didn't ask Holmes why," I said, although I might have asked Lestrade if a dozen listeners weren't hanging on our words, eager for any hint of collusion.

"If I know Sherlock Holmes," Lestrade grumbled, "I'm about to find out that he's solved my last three cases by reading the newspapers."


	85. Call the Next Witness

No sooner had Lestrade and Holmes finished their low-voiced colloquy than the judge called the court to order. I returned to the stand, to suffer under more misleading questions, but I confess that my mind was not entirely upon my answers, and the prosecutor grew increasingly frustrated. He had preferred me angry, no question, but between my worry over Holmes's condition and my curiosity about the messages which were being shuttled from his bed to my barrister, I had other things to think about.

As I left the stand, my barrister stood. "I summon Alfred Carter, my Lord."

"'oo, _me_?"


	86. Callow

Alfie, no longer the youngest and smallest of the Irregulars, still needed a box to see over the rail comfortably. He perched there like a London sparrow, following the words of the oath of honesty with lip-biting concentration before he assented. The judge and lawyers loomed over him, but he was too used to that state to be daunted.

"We was watching a constable try to calm down two shopkeepers what had been fighting when old la... Missus Hudson come looking for help."

"And what did you see at Baker Street?"

"Him," pointing to Merridew, "a-trying to kill the doctor."


	87. Calculated Malice

Alfie's testimony, delivered with such blazing honesty as to confound my detractors in the gallery and bring smiles to the faces of my supporters, did little to shake the prosecutor's determination to paint me in the harshest light. He began his questions for the child by drawling, "You do all _sorts_ of things for the doctor, don't you, Alfie? He_ likes_ you and the other boys?"

"Sure," Alfie agreed, innocent of any insinuations in the tone of the question.

"And he shows you favors, correct? Gives you presents?"

Alfie tugged at his hair, considering. "He gived me a handkercher once."


	88. Call for Discretion

"And do you keep secrets with the doctor?" The prosecutor asked next.

"Dr. Watson?" Alfie grinned. "He ain't the kind to need secrets."

"Mr. Holmes, then?"

"Sure."

"Tell us about them."

"Naw, I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"'Cause they're _secrets._ I promised not to say nothing, and so did Mister Holmes. Would you tell a secret if you promised not to tell?"

"Well, I might, if it would get me out of trouble," the prosecutor said, inviting Alfie to do the same.

But Alfie treated that offer with the disdain it deserved. "Not Mister Holmes. He's a _proper_ toff."


	89. Call for Secrets

"But how are we to trust that your secrets are not relevant to the matter at hand?" the prosecutor went on, and Alfie stared at him, clearly uncomprehending. "Are they about something that you and Mr. Holmes did together?" he amended hastily.

To my astonishment, the boy blushed, "Only one of them," he said. "And it ain't nothing Dr. Watson or Jim knows about, is it?"

"Nevertheless, if you wish us to accept your testimony, you should tell the court. A deceptive nature is untrustworthy."

Alfie craned up to look to Holmes, who promptly waved a hand in languid permission.


	90. Small Caller

"It was last Christmastime," Alfie said, looking at his toes. "When it was so cold-like. The doctor, he'd gone off and got married, and Mr. Holmes was all alone. So's I went to visit him. And then I fell asleep by the fire."

"And why is that a secret?"

"Well, when I woke up, he had me coat off..." Alfie paused when the room gasped, but then went on doggedly. "And he was a-sewing a patch over the biggest hole in it."

The prosecutor looked quite frustrated. "Surely there was no reason to keep _that _a secret!"

"Boys don't sew!"


	91. Call for Alarm

As Alfie's young friends (and half the room!) proceeded to prove exactly why he had been wise to conceal his lessons from Holmes in the use of thread and needle, I turned my head to share a smile with Mary. Had I not, I would not have glimpsed the thin, tatterdemalion man who was sidling through the crowd toward my wife.

There was something in his manner, in the way his wild eyes darted constantly about, which kindled a flame of worry in my breast. But before I could articulate my trepidation, he drew a glass vial from his pocket.


	92. Calamity

Like a nightmare I saw Mary, still unaware of the danger, her eyes bright with laughter. She was so beautiful in that moment I thought my heart would burst. I think I raised a hand -- I know I cried out -- and as the stopper fell to the ground and the vial rose, liquid tumbling from its mouth, a dark shape interposed itself between my Mary and the danger.

The acrid reek of the acid filled the air, as everyone in the vicinity screamed and scrambled away. Except Lestrade, now trying desperately to divest himself of his smouldering raincoat.


	93. Call of Duty

"Water, and plenty of it!" I ordered the nearest constable as I reached Lestrade. He was beginning to tremble, and I bade him stand still as I unbuttoned the last few buttons and slid his coat from his shoulders. A few small drops had spattered higher than his collar, and it was all he could manage not to try to press his bare hands against the pain. As soon as the firebucket reached me, I dipped my handkerchief in it and began to wash away the acid. "You've three blisters," I told Lestrade. "And I owe you a new coat."


	94. Call it Poetic Justice

It became necessary to warn everyone whose clothing bore any trace of the acid that they should go and soak in the nearest fountain (not all of them being in a position to purchase new attire.) Two boys who had been sitting at Mary's feet had been splattered directly upon skin by small amounts, but thanks to Anstruther's medical bag we were soon able to cope with the resultant injuries.

The ragged wretch who had caused all the trouble had been splashed too. He keened miserably in the grip of the constables as I began to apply the soda poultice.


	95. Call for Revenge

"He never said it was going to hurt!" Mary's attacker babbled as the morphine took effect and his pain was eased. "Said it would make her blue! Never said it would hurt!"

"Who said it wouldn't hurt?" The hand that was suddenly resting far too much weight on my shoulder could only belong to Holmes. "What did he tell you to do?"

"Told me to throw it on her face as she left the building. I waited, but she never come out. Promised me five pound once I done it. Said it would make her blue!"

"Shut up, you fool!"


	96. Call for Restraint

Merridew's outburst left little doubt in my mind that he had been the architect of near disaster. I carefully placed Anstruther's instruments back into his bag and then rose to face the man who up until that very moment I had not thought of as my enemy. Through the scarlet haze of anger I saw him, saw his champions drawing disdainfully away from his side.

Saw the flush of fever on his sweaty brow.  
Saw the bandages on his hands.

There could be no fair fight.

Not now.  
Not ever.

I turned to Holmes. "Let's get you back into bed."


	97. Call to Battle

"Watson, look out!"

Holmes's warning meant that I could brace myself for the impact of Merridew's furious attempt to knock me from my feet. I could not risk falling, not with Holmes still leaning upon my arm, and the boys nearest us were too small to support us both.

Nor did I wish Holmes to become involved in a fracas, although the color was high in his cheeks, and his hands were curled into fists. He and Merridew were of a height, and the one as damaged as the other, but I could not allow it.

"This is _my _fight."


	98. Call in the Ladies

"No, at this point, I believe it is _mine_," said Mary, quite clearly, to the unmistakable accompaniment of the hammer of a gun being pulled back into the ready position.

Merridew suddenly went quite still. He was not so lost to common sense as to attempt to turn his anger on Mary, not with the business end of my service revolver so very near his ear.

Mrs. Hudson tugged the nearest constable forward. "See that that scoundrel stays in his seat, until we're done. I'm sure Mrs. Watson would prefer to get the doctor home in time for his tea."


	99. Colloquy

"John, dear, would you mind?" Mary had the gun pointed to the floor, but hadn't uncocked it yet, and she was being given an understandably wide berth. I knew her to be perfectly capable of handling the weapon, but blessed her for the excuse to go to her side. Despite her air of calm, she was glad, too.

"I had no idea you came so prepared," I chided her fondly.

"You haven't been reading the newspapers," she replied, and then relented. "I'm sorry. I know you should have liked to thrash him. But I didn't think the jury would approve."

﻿


	100. Call Me Your Heart

"I'd still like to thrash him," I confessed.

Our clasped hands were trembling visibly, so I brought them to my lips to still them. Anstruther was directing the clean up of the acid. The boys and Bunter were settling Holmes back into the bed. Merridew was fuming in his chair, a constable's hand on his shoulder. The prosecutor had his head in his hands. The judge was trying to reassert his authority. The audience was ignoring him, still babbling enthusiastically. For a few moments more I could draw on Mary's certainty and strength. "Whatever would I do without you, love?"

﻿


	101. Strategy Call

Smythe was jubilant, although he was trying to disguise his happiness by fussing with his periwig. "That's their best witness discredited," he murmured to me as I took my seat once more. "The fool's done our work for us. We've a fighting chance now, no matter what's been slipped into the judge's pocket."

"Looks like he bit into a lime," Wiggins observed. "Is it my turn next, guv? I'm all ready. Shined my shoes and everything."

"I was thinking of Mr. Holmes."

"Let him rest for now," I said. "If anyone can administer the _coup de grace_, it's Sherlock Holmes."

﻿


	102. Call the Landlady

Smythe chose to summon Mrs. Hudson, and promised Wiggins he'd follow. The dispirited prosecutor found it impossible to traduce me further with her on the stand. "If Doctor Watson had been the one with the revolver," she pointed out icily, "he would have been standing _behind _Mr. Merridew when they met me at the door. And if that scoundrel had a lick of sense he would have known that Mr. Holmes always lets himself in with his key when he's not himself. Besides, it's Mr. Holmes who celebrates with steak and oysters. The doctor prefers a nice rack of lamb."

﻿


	103. Call the Boy

Wiggins took the stand next, and surveyed the audience from a considerably higher vantage point than Alfie had. He took the oath solemnly, and testified somberly.

But his voice cracked once. "I thought it was Mr. Holmes gone mad, at first, but whether 'twas or not, I knew I couldn't let him strangle the doctor, and I didn't."

I was used to thinking of him as a child, but in that moment I saw the young man he was becoming, and promised myself that Wiggins would have a set of boots without holes in the toes before the snow flew.

﻿


	104. Selective Recall

The prosecutor approached Wiggins with a renewed vigor.

"You thought Mr. Holmes had gone mad, did you?" he purred. "Does Mr. Holmes go mad often?"

Wiggins drew back his head like a cat which has smelled something unpleasant. "Hey?"

"You said you thought the man struggling with Dr. Watson was Holmes at first, correct? How could that be? According to Dr. Watson's testimony, Holmes had left the house in disguise. And according to Mrs. Hudson's testimony, when Mr. Holmes is in disguise, his own mother wouldn't recognize him. Therefore it must have been his actions you thought familiar, mustn't it?"

﻿


	105. Call it to Mind

Wiggins frowned and bit his lip. "You're wrong," he asserted. "Mr. Holmes ain't even half-mad. But if it weren't that..." His voice trailed off and he looked over to Holmes, who did not even open his eyes, but reached up to mime doffing a hat.

"That's it!" Wiggins exclaimed triumphantly. "The hat! And the coat. I recognized the hat and coat he was wearing. Couldn't see his face anyway, not from behind."

"You were prompted!" the prosecutor objected.

"Don't mean it's not true."

"You're saying you recognized the disguise, not the man?"

"Why not? I'm the one what purchased it!"

﻿


	106. Recall the Details

"I got the hat off a peddler and the coat from Perkin's Pawnshop, not three weeks gone," Wiggins went on confidently. "And Perkins, he'll remember me, 'cause I jawed him down a shilling for the stain on the hem of the coat, even though Mr. Holmes had told me he wanted one what looked hard used. Didn't do nothin' about the trousers, mind. Mr. Holmes he took care of that part. Not that I was a-lookin' at trousers while the doctor was getting his neck wrung. I just grabbed up the brass tray and swung as hard as I could."

﻿


	107. Call Sherlock Holmes

The prosecutor retired to his seat in disarray, trying to appear as if he had not just been bested by a street urchin. The gallery was growing clamorous, with several of the hecklers glad of a fresh target, and others belligerently persisting in their abuse of me. But the fight I was expecting did not break out. Perhaps the audience were as wrought with anticipation as the reporters, whose notebooks were all out and at the ready."

Smythe rose. "Your honor, I beg the court's indulgence to allow my final witness to testify from his place. I call Sherlock Holmes."


	108. Call the Invalid

Propped up by pillows, the tube of oxygen never far from his face, Holmes resembled a Turkish noble, enjoying the pleasures of couch and hookah. It was clear to me that his languid air had more to do with exhaustion than any medication he'd been given; nevertheless, he answered Smythe's questions with his customary clarity, directing his comments to the jury with the calm confidence of a man who cannot be disbelieved.

Only once did he hesitate. When Smythe asked if Holmes had told me of Merridew before the attack. His eyes flickered to meet mine, sending an unmistakable warning.


	109. A Harsh Call

"Since his marriage, I'm afraid that the doctor and I have seen very little of each other," Holmes said entirely too casually. "His _legitimate_ work interferes in any opportunities for him to indulge his unlikely hobby of accompanying me upon my cases. But Watson's preference is for the outré, cases which have some romantic or dramatic aspect to suit his pen rather than simple criminal matters." His long hand dismissed that consideration. "Even if he were still a resident of Baker Street I should not have troubled him with a dull, sordid case such as this one appeared to be."


	110. Calculation

I ran my hand over my moustache, as much to hide my expression as to deal with my sensation of increasing untidiness, and hoped my posture did not betray my unease. Nothing Holmes had said was exactly untrue, although the emphasis he had placed upon certain aspects of our relations were unlikely to improve the jury's opinion of me. Nor Holmes, as he was no doubt aware, for he shifted uncomfortably and added. "I mean no slight upon Watson, mind you. I do not share my conclusions with anyone – at least not until I am certain that they _are_ conclusions."


	111. Called Unnecessary

Then Holmes embarked upon one of the most delicate performances I have ever witnessed. Without uttering a single untruth he portrayed himself as an inveterate lone wolf, tolerating my presence as Greek chorus for the sake of a half-share in the rent at first, and later out of indolence. I listened in grim silence, letting the words wash past me as I gauged the signs of his increasing exhaustion. Had I not just witnessed an attack upon Mary for the transgression of being my wife, I might not have understood. But I had, and I did. There was still danger.


	112. Call It a Challenge

Smythe retired to our table with a certain amount of dismay. He had hoped for better from Holmes on my behalf, and his disappointment was palpable. The prosecutor, on the other hand, approached Holmes with the eagerness of a man who has seen a streak of daylight betraying a weakness in his opponent's line of defence.

"If your opinion of the doctor is so poor," he inquired in a self-satisfied tone, "then whyever did you drag not only yourself, but your sickbed as well, halfway across London to this courtroom?"

"Perhaps," Holmes drawled, "because my opinion of _you _is poorer."


	113. Call His Bluff

The prosecutor spluttered. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean," said Holmes, bringing his fingertips together and assuming a professorial air, "that you have undertaken to prove several patently false propositions. A man holding a gun on another man does not resort to other weapons out of spite. Neither does he risk walking through crowded streets without some other guarantee of his hostage's good behavior. While your zeal may be construed as admirable, your insistence upon resorting to slander in the face of any and all evidence which refutes your thesis bodes ill for the future of justice in this country."


	114. Call to Your Attention

Holmes's lecture was somewhat marred by the necessity of drawing upon the oxygen again, but the prosecutor was too flabbergasted to take advantage of the interruption. My friend, having dismissed the man from consideration, turned his attention to the jury. "This case is entirely a question of credibility. Had Dr. Watson denied using the acid, or claimed that it was merely spilled, you would have cause to doubt his assertions as to why it was used. But, as was so very nearly demonstrated before us, a person who uses acid out of spite aims for the _face_, not the hands."


	115. Call it an Anomaly

Reminded of the recent danger, I turned my head to be certain of Mary's safety, but she was surrounded by vigilant constables and equally alert Irregulars, and only smiled reassurance to me and nodded toward the jurybox. I looked too, and saw the jurors pulling on their chins and leaning on their forearms, clearly deep in thought as they concentrated on Holmes's quiet words. All but one, a dandified youngster in a checked suit who fidgeted and bit at his nails nervously, casting glances now and then at the judge and prosecutor as if looking for some kind of cue.


	116. Call it a Conspiracy

Knowing Mary, she had noticed the discrepancies in that young juror's behavior as well, for all her air of calm. She has never been one to fall apart when others are distressed. I drew Smythe's attention to the jurybox and then tried to contain my own dismay. I scarcely listened as Holmes outlined the reasons why the evidence supported my version of events and not Merridew's. Judge, prosecutor, juryman, and I suspected not a few of the roughs in the gallery... how many of the people in the courtroom were plotting against me, and for the love of heaven _why?_


	117. Recall the Facts

"In short," Holmes summed up his reasoning, "the location of the altercation is significant, because if Watson and I were 'in cahoots' as the saying goes, there would have been no need for Watson to take anyone to my lodgings. He would have known which papers were significant without Merridew's assistance. The location of Merridew's worst injuries is significant because clearly the attack focused upon the hands, where one might reasonably expect him to have been carrying weaponry." Holmes shifted on his pillow and swallowed a cough. "And there is one more incontrovertible item which you must take into account."


	118. Call Out the Ladies

To my dismay, Holmes began to shrug out of the jacket which he wore over his nightshirt. "If the ladies would be so kind as to retire to the hall temporarily?" he said, looking to Mary.

She nodded, accepting calmly what was already making me shake with a mixture of apprehension and comprehension. "We'll return when you are decent," she said and stood to go, drawing the other women in the courtroom to their feet by the sheer force of her personality.

"Go with her," I hissed at the nearest Irregular. "All of you boys, go too. Keep her safe."


	119. Call for the Professional

The men still in the courtroom jostled for a better view as soon as they were able, craning necks and whispering as Bunter stepped forward to help Holmes remove his jacket. For all that he was very careful I could see Holmes flinching as they worked together to free the tail of the nightshirt he still wore from the confines of his trousers. It was a huge relief to me when at last Holmes was freed of the shirt and nothing but his bandages remained. He looked to me, "Doctor, I think you'd best be the one to unwind these."


	120. Remnants of Calamity

I knelt by Holmes. "I'm doing this under protest you know," I murmured as I began to undo the strapping. "Your ribs need the support."

"It's necessary," Holmes answered, his fingers digging painfully into my shoulders, his jaw set too tight for more words.

Layer by layer the cloth came away, and revealed on each pass more of the hideous aura of yellow and green which had expanded to cover Holmes's torso from collarbone to beltline. The colors deepened, dark mottling following the indentations left by the constrictive bandaging as I worked my way towards the heart of the damage.


	121. Calm

His ribs had healed enough that the damaged section no longer rose and sank with each breath, but the dark purple of the bruising there showed clearly where he had been struck. He took a deeper breath, and quirked a shaky smile in my direction. "It's almost easier to breathe," he observed.

Easier, perhaps, but he was beginning to tremble. I eased him back onto the pillows and laid my fingertips upon the pulse point in his throat, waiting until the tumultuous fluttering of his heart began to steady into a more regular rhythm before I allowed myself to relax.


	122. Call Out a Challenge

I admit to paying scant attention to the audience around us, but Holmes had not forgotten them. He turned to the jury with a simulacrum of his usual masterful air and said, "To forestall any doubts you may have, should the subject of my skill with disguises be raised, I suggest that a closer examination would be as well. With a little soap and water, I'm sure that any question of make-up can be eliminated."

Holmes then fixed his gimlet stare upon the nervous young man I had noted earlier. "You, sir," he commanded. "In the checked suit. Come here."


	123. A Calculated Risk

I studied the juryman as he stepped down from the box, trying to apply some of Holmes's precepts. Despite the scented brilliantine in his hair and the barbershop neatness of his mustache, his ragged fingernails and badly polished boots showed him either careless of his appearance or under unusual strain. The knees and elbows of his suit were wearing thin, which I took as proof that he had not been able to afford better in some time. A pink corner of paper showed from one pocket, betraying why. A gambler, then – and a gamble too, if he were playing false.


	124. Collins

Bunter appeared with a basin of soapy water and a soft cloth – no doubt Holmes had warned him of his intentions – and offered them and a bedside chair to the juryman, who accepted both but then sat with the cloth dangling from his hand. "I don't know where to start," he stammered.

"Near the edges, please," I interjected hastily. "Additional pressure on the original injury would aggravate the damage. Go carefully."

"Yes, caution would be a good thing," Holmes murmured, his expression unnaturally closed. "You don't want to make things worse for me – nor for yourself, do you, Mr. Collins?"


	125. Call for a Parley

Collins, for that _had_ to be his name, froze and went white to the lips, his eyes bright with terror. "How..." he exclaimed.

I took the soggy cloth hastily. "I'll wash, you watch," I said, clearly enough for the court to hear. "You'll never make a soldier, man, if a few bruises make you faint."

The burst of laughter from the audience covered Holmes's quiet command to Collins to keep still. My friend had taken the young man's arm in one hand, holding tight enough to make his knuckles whiten. "You don't want anyone to overhear our negotiations, do you?"


	126. Call It Persuasion

As the cool wet cloth touched his skin, Holmes gave a small shudder, and let his eyes fall nearly shut. "You must agree," he muttered, so softly that I doubt anyone but Collins or I could hear, "that by attempting to avenge himself on the doctor's wife, Merridew has destroyed any chance of this trial turning out in his favor. Even if you manage to deadlock the jury and cause a mistrial, Dr. Watson is sure to be exonerated at the Assizes. And by then, I shall be ready to explain why I began my investigation. And what I found."


	127. Call for a Truce

With a mouse trapped under his paw, and my careful ablutions satisfying his catlike love of cleanliness after a week of having his torso trapped within a suffocating pall of bandaging, Holmes was all but purring. At least so it seemed to me, although Collins might be forgiven for seeing nothing but the claws.

He squirmed in his chair like a schoolboy, but Holmes would not let go. "What are you after?" he hissed, trying to keep his mouth nearly closed.

"A temporary ceasefire," Holmes replied. "To give the noncombatants like the doctor and yourself time to clear the field."


	128. Call Down the Lightning

_Non-combatant?_

I would have cocked an eyebrow at Holmes if he'd done so much as spare me a glance. But I did not dare to interrupt him, for I'd not be able to stall much longer.

"There is a manuscript," Holmes went on, "which would raise questions about the death of John Douglas. Questions I could answer now, if necessary, thanks to Merridew. Remember, a man already in prison has little to fear from a charge of libel, and his trial might uncover many things. The Professor is not the only one who can employ the power of the press."


	129. Call Him by Name

Holmes's sharp intake of breath was my fault, for in my sudden alarm my hands grew clumsy. Over my shoulder, the prosecutor, whose presence I had almost forgotten, gasped too, albeit for a different reason. But that small exhalation of air proved to me that Holmes's deductions as to the author of my difficulties were most certainly correct. I'd spent six months writing about the Birlstone Valley business and its fatal results, only to set the whole manuscript aside at Holmes's request when I decided to marry. But despite that discretion I'd still managed to fall afoul of Professor Moriarty.


	130. Call it a Bargain

I crumpled the cloth in my hand and returned it to the basin, reaching for a towel. "I'll have to rewrap your chest, Holmes," I said, mechanically, while my mind raced. I needed to keep Collins here, at least until Holmes had struck whatever bargain it was he had in mind. "Make yourself useful, and look in that bag there for fresh bandages."

Collins stumbled to do as I asked, all too glad to have Holmes release his arm. But Holmes's attention had fixed upon the prosecutor. "All I ask," he said, "is that the jury gives a fair judgment."


	131. Call for Justice

"And if that fair judgment goes against you?" the prosecutor asked, which saved me the trouble of asking the same question.

"I have faith in an honest English jury," Holmes said. He was grimacing with pain as I eased him back into a sitting position, but he would not let that stop him. "If Collins has been neglecting the evidence in favor of a pre-determined outcome he need only side with the majority."

"And that's all?"

"It is. Except, of course," Holmes added, with steel in his voice, "that Mrs. Watson and the Doctor shall not be retaliated against, afterwards."


	132. Called Out of Play

For an interminable interlude Holmes and the prosecutor held a silent battle of wills over my head, and I saw the gleam in my friend's eye when the prosecutor conceded to the terms. But I had taken notice of the omission Holmes had left, and had no doubt it had been done deliberately.

"But Holmes," I protested, once I was sure I could do so quietly. "What about you?"

His grip upon me tightened with a warning. "Once you've left the game, Doctor," he said, sparing me only the mildest glance of condescention, "you cannot expect to set the rules."


	133. Call it Frustrating

"Moriarty must have a target," Holmes vouchsafed quietly to me, once the prosecutor and Collins had departed for their places to consider the proposition, and I was left winding the bandages which Anstruther had brought around his thin, damaged chest. "And I'd rather it was me than your good lady wife."

"I can't say I think much of either choice," I growled. "You're not in any condition to stave off a murder attempt."

But Holmes only patted my arm consolingly. "They won't try for me, not yet. The professor will try to find out where I've hidden the manuscript first."


	134. Call Him Exasperating

Reluctantly, I returned to my seat, and listened with my head in my hands while the ladies were brought back in and Holmes explained to the court why his injuries proved that my reasons for attacking Merridew were urgent enough to justify whatever means had come to my hand. His voice was losing strength, it seemed to me, although only Holmes knew if that impression were deliberate, a ruse to draw Moriarty's fire.

And I was furious at the thought that it might be. How dare he play the martyr, risking the life I had done so much to save?


	135. Call to Escape

Between them, Wiggins and Smythe convinced me that I must show my face to the jury before they retired to decide my fate. I could only hope that they could not read my thoughts, as Holmes was wont to do. My head ached with the desire to run, to break free of the constraints which would entrap me, regardless of anything which it was in my power to do. For tuppence I'd have taken them all on, judge, prosecutor, hecklers, even Moriarty himself. Yes, and saved a few blows for Holmes, too, or anyone else who got in my way.


	136. Waiting for the Call

The sunlight streaming in the western windows did little to ease my headache. I took a surreptitious look at my watch and realized that part of the misery in my gut was due to hunger. It had been hours since I had shared my luncheon with Wiggins.

Any hope I had for a quick verdict faded as the minutes passed. The chatter of the audience slowed and faded as the wait grew longer. Wiggins gnawed on a fingernail. The other boys played at cat's cradle. Mary and Mrs. Hudson were knitting. Merridew was sulking. And Holmes...

Holmes had fallen asleep.


	137. Call for Precautions

I signalled to Anstruther, who paused for a moment to spread the blanket higher over Holmes's shoulders before coming to me.

"It's time you took him home," I said, coming straight to the point. "The machine will need fresh chemicals soon, and he's done all he can for me here. The boys can help you."

Anstruther frowned. "The jury won't take much longer, surely?"

If Collins were too frightened of Moriarty to concede to Holmes, they might take all night, but I couldn't say that to Anstruther. "I'd rather he were somewhere safe. The crowd may not like the verdict."


	138. Called Off the Field

To my alarm, Holmes acquiesced to my decision almost immediately. He insisted on having young Simpson stay to report the verdict by telegram as soon as possible, but allowed himself to be taken out of the court by Bunter and Anstruther with barely a word of protest.

The boys were harder to convince. If I hadn't struck on telling Alfie that he was to tell our cook to feed the lot of them as soon as she could, I doubt they would have gone. But their stomachs were nearly as empty as my own.

Mary, however, wouldn't concede an inch.


	139. Call it Ominous

In spite of my misgivings, I felt glad of Mary's presence as the evening wore on, despite the loss of the morning's constables as those men returned to their work. They were replaced, but by fewer faces, and Gregson stopped by to tell me that Lestrade was doing well enough, but had become entangled in a disturbance on his own street when he'd gone home to change his clothing. "There's trouble all over London it seems," the Inspector said with a frown. "I'd have to pull the men from here if it weren't that the Commissioner agrees there's trouble brewing."


	140. Call it Treachery

The sun had been gone for some time before the judge allowed that Wiggins and I might take a few minutes to refresh ourselves, and it was no surprise that we were not the only ones to take advantage of the opportunity. But as we were escorted back towards the courtroom we were intercepted by the prosecutor. "Might I have a word with the doctor?" he asked the bailiff at my elbow. "I promise he'll not escape me."

"I don't know, sir," the bailiff said, holding out a hand expectantly. My heart sank as I saw the flash of gold.


	141. Called Aside

"I think I'd prefer to return to the courtroom," I said, setting in my heels.

"Me too," Wiggins said, trying to tug free of the bailiff's grip. "You're not going to take the doctor off all alone. Mr. Holmes would go spare!"

"It's nothing to do with the boy," The prosecutor said significantly. "I'd just like to have you step out with me onto that balcony. There are certain points which require clarification with – shall we say – an _ interested_ party. You can be back in your seat in a matter of minutes. And surely a cigarette would not go amiss?"


	142. Call of Conscience

A more dubious offer I could not recall. Certainly, whatever counter-offer to Holmes's bargaining was about to be made would only be to my disadvantage. Yet clearly I could see that the jury would not be allowed to come to any decision without some further concession on my part.

And Wiggins had no idea of the stormclouds which were gathering over us.

With a sinking sensation I realized that Holmes had forgotten to mention the Irregulars when he had bargained for Mary's safety and mine.

"Nothing to do with the _boys_?" I answered, emphasizing the plural. "Can you guarantee that?"


	143. Called Into Peril

"_I_ cannot guarantee anything," the prosecutor said. "But there is someone who could, if you would be so kind?" He gestured again towards the balcony.

Oh, how I wished that Holmes were still available for consultation! Or barring that, that Mycroft Holmes were nearby, although I had not felt his absence earlier. Our acquaintance was of the slightest, so he could not testify as to my character, and he had obligations which lay elsewhere today. I had accepted his apologies without hesitation, but that had been before I found myself about to bandy words with the cleverest villain in Europe.


	144. Calls for Revised Plans

The night air felt cool and pleasant on my face as I stepped out into the open, though it promised a chill before long. Below us the broad street was busy with carriages and pedestrians – had I the inclination to escape I could have jumped down to join them, for we were barely a storey above the pavement. And I must admit that I was more than a little tempted, for of the two men who awaited us, neither could be the middle-aged and ascetic Professor which Holmes had described to me. Mathematics does not require an excess of muscle.


	145. Call to Converse

"I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish," I growled. "There are too many people on the street for you to kidnap me, and I'm not such a fool as to run."

"These gentlemen are here to _prevent_ you from leaving, doctor," the prosecutor said, not quite calmly. "Come. Sit down." He pulled out his cigarette case and offered it to me. "We've a chair all ready for you, see?"

A chair, I saw, and as my eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness I also saw something attached to the balcony railing beside it. A speaking tube.


	146. Call for Caution

A moment's investigation showed that the far end of the tube was in a carriage, parked below the balcony. Whether Moriarty himself were inside, or merely one of his most trusted lieutenants, I could not tell; given the distortions of the speaking tube, I would not be able to identify even so much as the man's voice should we ever meet on another occasion. The very cleverness of it reassured me, despite the hair which stood on the back of my neck. But I was far too nervous to sit. I reached for my end of the tube. "I'm listening."


	147. Call for Confirmation

"Then listen very carefully." The voice at the farther end of the tube was as cold and hollow as a grave. "You wish to walk from the court a free man, and hold as ransom for that freedom a certain manuscript, the very existence of which has not yet been confirmed."

"I wish no more than a fair trial," I said, just as coldly. "And as for the manuscript, it exists. I spent several months composing it."

"And the allegations within it?"

"Are merely allegations," I admitted. "They are not enough to convict any man in a court of law."


	148. Call Exchange

"Then why should the manuscript have any bearing on _this_ matter?"

"Because the allegations are true. Unlike those which were made today against Sherlock Holmes. Were they to come to light any newspaperman who cared to scratch beneath the surface would only find more material for lurid headlines." I passed a hand over my face. "I can't say I was unhappy that Holmes asked me to withhold it from publication for a time once it was finished."

The reply came after a pause. "If you were glad to withhold it, then you will be gladder to be rid of it."


	149. Call Him a Gentleman

"Impossible." The word was pulled out of me before I had a chance to think better of it. And yet, having said it, I felt a burst of relief. Attempting to perpetuate the delicate misconception of our friendship which Holmes had created during his testimony was rapidly becoming more strain than I had the strength for. Moriarty was far too quick to catch at any inconsistency. Honor was the better refuge.

"I gave my word that the tale would be told, someday, and the man to whom I pledged it is no longer able to release me from that promise."


	150. Calenture

"You would keep that manuscript, risk imprisonment and disgrace, _knowing_ that if you were but to give it up you could walk free?"

An irrepressible flush of angry heat distorted my vision. "I'll go free in any case, soon or late." I laughed harshly. "You're the one risking disgrace, Professor. I didn't know you had anything to do with any of this until today, but if it weren't for Sherlock Holmes I'd publish the manuscript and be damned. Or have you forgotten that your lackey Merridew has already been identified as the one who tried to have my wife mutilated!"


	151. Call it Mutually Untenable

A heavy hand took a painful grip on my left shoulder. "No need to be rude now," the thug attached to it grumbled in a voice like an earthquake.

I glared at him. "Do you really want to start a ruckus, with all the world down on the street? It would only lend credence to any accusation that was made about interference in my trial."

He blinked, and glanced at the prosecutor, who gestured that I should be let go.

I turned my attention back to the speaking tube. "Well? You started this."

"It seems we are at an impasse."


	152. Call for a Compromise

"Not necessarily." I thought I saw a narrow chance for a resolution, and I was determined to take it. "But it depends entirely upon whether or not Merridew has been acting under your orders."

"He has not," the answer came straight away. "Not today, and not when he involved you a week ago."

"I promised John Douglas I'd tell his story 'someday', and as he's dead it doesn't matter if it's now or twenty years after you're dead too. After all, what's the point of being the best at what you do if no one has ever heard of you?"


	153. Calling and Raising

"You offer me infamy?" He didn't sound entirely offended, which was promising.

"I offer you immortality, long after you would be forgotten. And a promise, on my honor, not to discuss or testify in the matter of the manuscript until it is published, so long as you make no moves against me or my family. I'll even sweeten the pot by persuading Holmes that the danger to the Baker street boys is too great for him to continue using them in matters concerning you, if you'll leave them alone, and that's as good as tying a hand behind his back."


	154. Call for a Concession

"You're very confident of your writing," the voice observed, with the first touch of warmth I had detected. "And very much a gambler, as reports have indicated. What will you offer me for the Hudson' woman's safety, a statue in Regent's park?"

"Mrs. Hudson?" I cast around for a possibility, trying to think past the cold hardness that had settled into my chest. "I..."

"Would you give up publishing your romantical tales of detection? Cease glorifying Sherlock Holmes until after he is no longer a nuisance I must take into account?"

"That might not be as long as you think."


	155. Call for a Prognosis

"Is his condition that grave?"

"It is. And I expect it will be worse by morning."

"You exaggerate, doctor. He _did _come to your defense."

"He came," I pointed out, bitterly, "because _you_ interfered. Holmes trusts the honesty of an English jury, and if Anstruther had had the sense to dose him before the newspapers started to report the case he'd have spent the day safe in his bed, as I wished. But once he knew you were involved he was bound to come. Sherlock Holmes has little regard for his own health when he scents an injustice taking place."


	156. Siren Call

"Is it an injustice for me to ensure that my friend Merridew shall receive some compensation for his injuries at your hand?"

"If it's compensation he's after and not revenge you could have come to me and asked for money. Look, Holmes didn't ask for a guarantee that I should go free; merely that you allow the jury to make their decision based on the truth."

"It sounds as if you are getting very little reward for your loyalty, doctor. Perhaps you should consider changing allegiances. The guarantees you seek would be yours, of course, should you accept my offer."


	157. Callous

I raised my chin, although he could not see me. "My oaths were given to Queen and Country," I said. "And after today you will find it difficult to convince me that you are acting in the best interests of either one."

To my everlasting astonishment, he laughed. "Very well. Keep your side of the bargain and I will hold the women and children out of bounds. But Merridew, for all he is a fool, has been promised something."

A whistle blew, and at that signal I was struck from behind with such force that I fell to my knees.


	158. Call for Rescue

I grabbed for the chair in front of me, having no better weapon to hand, and swung it around as I turned to rise, striking the legs of the hooligan nearest me and forcing him back. But the other brute was equipped with a carriage whip, and before I could reach him he laid another line of fire across my arm and left shoulder. I bellowed with the pain of it and charged at him, but my grip had loosened, and between them Moriarty's men wrested the chair away from me. Luckily, a cry from the doorway interrupted us.

"John!"


	159. Call Off the Dogs

Moriarty's bruisers must have witnessed Mary's display of weapons expertise in the courtroom, for the moment they heard her voice they let me go and made for the balcony rail. Mary came quickly over to help me up and we watched as they hobbled their way into the crowd.

"What the hell was that all about?" I snarled, once I'd regained the speaking tube.

"Mr. Merridew's one requirement was that he _see_ you in pain, and you are far too honest for pretense. I suggest you eschew stoicism when you return to your seat, doctor. I, too, keep my promises."


	160. Call the Retreat

Before I could answer there came another whistle, two-toned, and the carriage driver below me snapped his reins. By some remembered battle instinct I dropped to the ground, more than half convinced that I heard the beesong of a passing bullet as I pulled Mary down alongside me, although I did not hear the report of a rifle. Behind us the French doors which gave access to the balcony broke under the strain of being jammed open by Stamford, who had the prosecutor by the arm and was using him as a battering ram. "What have you done with Watson?"


	161. Call Him a Liar

"Inside, quick!" I ordered, and it wasn't until I had Mary safe inside and the curtains pulled over the doors that I breathed again. I glared at the prosecutor, who was trying not to look as if he were seriously inconvenienced by Stamford's grip. "Where did you disappear to?"

"I went to fetch the bailiff, so he could escort you back to the court," he stammered, the rehearsed words sounding hollow, no doubt, even to his own ears.

"You went so you'd have an alibi for whatever happened to me," I corrected him. "What hold does _he_ have over you?"


	162. An Honest Call

"My s..." he began, but caught himself. "I don't know what you're talking about."

But I had seen the flare of fear in his eyes and I pressed my advantage. "You made a devil's bargain with him to protect someone." Holmes would have known I was guessing, but the prosecutor didn't, and he shoulders slumped even as he shook his head and refused to answer.

On another occasion I might have felt triumphant. Under other circumstances I might have felt disgust.

Instead I turned and started towards the courtroom. I couldn't throw stones; I'd done the same thing after all.


	163. Call it Proof

Mary caught me up before I had got very far. "Wait, John." She tugged the handkerchief from my sleeve. "You've got blood on your ear."

I didn't remember the blow, but I felt the sting as she began to dab at the injury. "It's all right," I told her, remembering Moriarty's final words. I took the handkerchief from her and stuffed it into a pocket. "A little blood might convince the judge that I wasn't just lollygagging around out there."

"What _were_ you doing?" Her patience was wearing very thin.

I hugged her. "Trying to make an end of this."


	164. Call Him Distracted

The judge did have a good deal to say to me about my dilatory attitude, but it sounded as if he were reading from a barely-rehearsed script and not speaking from any true ire. I took the admonishment without argument, far more preoccupied with wondering how Holmes might find a way to pry the court officials free from Moriarty's grip than listening. There had been a time when I had been tolerant of my friend's deductions about the extent of the Professor's depradations, skeptical and amused. Now I found myself wondering if Holmes had been too conservative in his conclusions.


	165. Call it Obvious

For twenty long minutes after we had taken our places again I sat and ruminated upon my own foolishness. Merridew had noted the damage to my person with only mild satisfaction, his own state of discomfort having been aggravated by the length of the wait. Wiggins noted the stiff way I sat and held my arm and identified the cause with a celerity which would have pleased his preceptor. He accepted my reassurances with a patent air of disbelief and scooted his chair nearer mine, crossing his arms and glaring at the prosecutor. But at last, the jury filed in.


	166. Call it Unsatisfactory

In the end, the verdict seemed an anticlimax. I felt more relief at Wiggins' exoneration than my own. I felt as if I had cheated, although the exasperation and disdain with which Collins was bestowed by his fellow jurors lent credence to the supposition that most of the panel had not required persuasion on my behalf.

The judge took the jury's decision with less-than grace, describing it as perverse even as he admitted that he lacked cause to override it. "Get out of my courtroom," he ordered me sullenly, a command I intended to obey.

I wanted to consult Holmes.


	167. A Professional Call

Departing was not as simple as I might wish, however. There were still plenty of people left in the building who wanted to offer me a buffet on the back in congratulations, or – despite the departure of the largest, loudest louts – a shower of spittle. It took a phalanx of constables to get Mary, Stamford and I out the door. I slipped a fiver to one of the men whom I knew better and nodded back to where Merridew sat slumped and miserable in the grasp of another policeman. "See to it that he gets a decent doctor, will you?"


	168. Call Out the News

Gregson, or Lestrade, I never found out which, had arranged for police wagon to be waiting, protection from the mob and the importunings of the pressmen. Mary wouldn't let me hand her up into it, and Stamford did the office for me. Once we were on our way, the two of them combined to make me remove my coat and shirt, so that Stamford could examine and treat my injuries by the light of the first convenient street lamp we stopped alongside on a quiet street. Distantly I could hear the newsboys shouting out the latest headline. "Watson goes free!"


	169. Call of Dismay

An unutterable weariness descended upon me as the Maria continued on its way and I dozed in Mary's arms, knowing that there would be little opportunity to rest when we reached home. And yet even my worst misgivings could not imagine the unrelenting darkness which engulfed every window of the house, nor the small figure huddled on the steps. I clambered down from the wagon, and went to the boy, recognizing him despite the gloom. "Alfie! What is it? What's wrong?"

The child flung himself against me before turning up a tearstained face. "Oh, doctor! It's Mr. Holmes! He's gone!"


	170. Not a Reassuring Call

_Gone!_

The word rang in my ears, echoing all the times when I had ever heard it used to mean an absence which could never be undone. But Alfie was still babbling: something about a boat, and a doctor, and being too small to go, and his grandmother missing him if he did, and no one here to let him in. I found my handkerchief and used it on him, gently.

"Now take a deep breaths and then tell me again, slowly, " I ordered.

But Mary interrupted before he had a chance to speak. "John! Someone's broken the lock!"


	171. An Urgent Call

"Take Alfie," I told Mary. "Go next door, and see if they know what's become of the servants."

"John, you can't do this," she countered, even as she passed over my service revolver. "You're shaking like a leaf. Constable!" she called to the driver of the Maria. "We need your help."

"Yes," I added. "Go around back. If there's someone inside I don't want them to get away."

"Right you are, sir." The constable snapped the reins and headed the wagon off for our mews alley.

Stamford took up his stick with undisguised trepidation. "This isn't my area of expertise."


	172. Call it a Search

The parlor was wildly disarrayed, my consulting room near dismantled, but a noise from the kitchen drew us past the front rooms. We found Jenny and Mrs. Bascomb locked into the pantry, hysterical but unharmed. I left Stamford soothing them while I went up the servants' stairs to the bedrooms. There, the signs of a hasty search proved that the invaders were not common burglars. My desk had been rifled, my books pulled down from the shelves, but Mary's jewelry box was untouched.

I should have thought them long gone had I not heard a sudden clatter from the attic.


	173. Calling the Shots

I managed to catch the second fellow by his ankle before he could escape through the skylight, and took a great deal of satisfaction out of reducing him to a lump of whining misery on the floorboards.

"Leave off, mister!" he cried. "We didn't take nothin'!"

"Because what you were sent for isn't here," I countered. "I'm not a fool. But you frightened my servants, and that I won't abide. Crawl back to your master, and make it clear to him that I will consider any further threats against the 'women or children' to be a violation of the terms."


	174. Call it a Fib

Stamford and the constable believed me when I told them that both men had escaped before we arrived, but Mary merely raised an eyebrow, and Alfie looked upon my freshly battered-knuckles with undisguised skepticism. "They ain't never..." the boy began, and then silenced himself reluctantly at my frown.

"They probably heard us coming and bolted before they could do more damage," I theorized mendaciously. "They wouldn't risk facing armed men."

"As long as they're gone," my wife said, giving me a kiss before going off to the kitchen to discover whether or not we would still have servants come morning.


	175. Call for an Explanation

Alfie danced with impatience as I accepted the constable's offer of a police guard upon the premises, and waved off Stamford's half-hearted offer to stay the rest of the night. No sooner had they gone than he attached himself to my arm and dragged me over to sit down on the stairs. "I hope you gave those bleeders a proper pounding, Doctor, so's they won't come back in a hurry."

"I did my best," I told him. "Now, tell me, where did you take Mr. Holmes?"

"To a boat. On the river." Alfie's face crumpled again. "I got left behind."


	176. Call the Messenger Boy

"_Someone_ had to bring me word," I reminded Alfie, applying my handkerchief before he could resort to his sleeve. "Holmes knows he can depend on you."

That thought hadn't occurred to the child, and it staved off the next round of tears, although he was still scowling. "I'd have liked to go with the others," he protested. "Mr. Holmes took almost all of 'em onto the boat. Said they'd be safer out of London."

I should have known Holmes would think of the Irregulars' safety. I couldn't help but smile as I asked. "Did he say where they were going?"


	177. Calling All Ships

Alfie shook his head. "I heard the other Mr. Holmes tell the captain that he should open his instructions once they were off the coast of Dover."

"The other Mr. Holmes?" _Mycroft?_ Impossible as it was to imagine him near the docks, now I understood why he had been unavailable to attend my trial. "Did he go too?"

"No. Mr. Bunter did, and a fancypants doctor. Mr. Holmes said he'd druther have you, but the other Mr. Holmes said the whole 'reason detter' was to draw the pack away from you, not leave you in the center of the target."


	178. Call for a Comrade

"It's a bit late for that," I said. "What about the other boys? Did they all go but you?"

"Most of 'em, 'cept me and the littler ones." Alfie scowled. "I told him I was old enough, but Mr. Holmes said he didn't want to be responsible for telling my grandmother I'd been skylarking and fallen off the boat."

"So all the older boys went?"

"Except for Simpson. He got sent to take a message to Wiggins, in case he didn't go to jail."

_Wiggins!_ I struck myself on the forehead with an open palm. I'd lost track of Wiggins!


	179. Call for the Wife

"Mary!" I called. "Mary, did you see where Wiggins got to?"

She came through the green baize door. "Wiggins? He made off to the right when we were leaving the courthouse. Said he hadn't needed to ride in a police wagon yet and didn't want to start."

At least he hadn't been pulled away unwillingly. "I hope he's all right," I sighed. With any luck, Moriarty would count him amongst the children.

"I'm sure he will be, dear," Mary said. "But, John, look." She held out a square of paper. "Jenny found it in her pocket. It's addressed to you."


	180. Calligraphy

_My Dear Watson,_

Prudence, in the form of my brother Mycroft, has dictated that I eschew your hospitality for a time. It is not, believe me, due to any fault of that hospitality; you have kept me as comfortable as my injuries would allow. But my presence is a danger to everyone in this house. Merridew may reserve his animosity for you, but his chief backer is too intelligent not to identify me as the cause of his difficulties.

I don't know when I shall return, and it's just as well you don't know either. Until then, take precautions.

Holmes


	181. Call Him Indignant

"He knew!" I thrust the paper back at Mary. "He knew before he ever left the house! Alfie! Did Mr. Mycroft Holmes come by this house today?"

"No?" Alfie shrank back against Mary's skirts, eyes wide.

"Then they must have planned it between them yesterday, when I'd stepped out of the room, and if they did _that_, then he knew perfectly well before I ever left the house this morning."

"Who knew what, dear?" Mary asked, entirely too calmly.

"Sherlock Holmes," I said, through gritted teeth, "_knew_ that he'd be taking our spare bed on a sea voyage before nightfall."


	182. Call the Other Doctor

Mary took her lip between her teeth, not, by the gleam in her eye, out of apprehension, but out of the desire not to burst into laughter. "I'm sure Mr. Holmes thought you would worry, if he told you sooner," she offered.

"Of course I'd worry!" I exclaimed. "By heaven, if Anstruther let Holmes go off on this lunatic expedition without protest, I'll..."

"He didn't like it neither," Alfie piped up. "But the other Mr. Holmes said as they could take him along as far as Gravesend so as he could tell the new doctor what he needed to know."


	183. Call Them Unintentional Benefits

I did not want to be mollified by this information. There was no denying, however, that I took a certain grim satisfaction in knowing that Anstruther would be able to give whichever "fancypants doctor" Mycroft Holmes had coerced into accompanying his brother on a sea voyage precise details concerning Sherlock Holmes's condition, previous treatment, and excessive reluctance to conform to medical advice. There were other advantages as well: If Holmes were _incommunicado_ he would not be fretting over the newspapers. And if he were mid-ocean, I would not be spending his convalescence trying to tie him down to a bed.


	184. Call Her the Doctor

Enough. Holmes wasn't there to be shouted at, and neither Mary nor Alfie deserved to be abused in his place.

The boy's uncertainty waned with my fading temper, but he didn't leave Mary's side. "I could go and look for him, if you like," he offered. "How far away is Gravesend?"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said, appalled at the very notion. "You'll have something to eat and then get some rest."

"Me?" Alfie exclaimed. "What about you?"

"Oh, he's going to have something to eat and then get some rest too," Mary said sweetly. "Aren't you, dear?"


	185. Call for a Drink

It came as a surprise, no doubt to Mary as well as to myself, that I found myself disinclined to quibble over her ultimatum. Instead I let myself be drawn into the kitchen, where Mrs. Bascomb was steadying her nerves with a hefty libation of cooking sherry. "An excellent notion," my wife declared, thereby saving herself the trouble of hiring a new cook.

We dined, therefore, upon jam sandwiches made with squashed bread and a hastily prepared batch of porridge, all washed down with the least expensive bottle my cellar had to offer.

"It's medicinal," Mary told me. "Drink up."


	186. Call it Well Earned

I made certain that the promised constables were stationed outside, both back and front of the house, before staggering off to bed. Between Holmes and the Army I had learned to accept that there were times when I must wait upon developments. Lacking orders, I had little choice but to rest and regroup. I did have some vague inclination to celebrate my continued freedom with Mary, but it did not survive the first touch of the pillow beneath my cheek.

When next I opened my eyes, sunlight was streaming in the window. Far below me someone was jangling the bell.


	187. Early Morning Caller

Much to my surprise, the muffled sound of Jenny greeting the visitor was followed immediately by the sound of booted feet coming up the stairs. I pushed back the blankets, meaning to reach for my robe, but the aches of the previous day slowed me, and I was still sitting on the edge of the bed when the door opened to reveal Inspector Lestrade.

"Thank heaven you're safe," he said, slumping against the doorjamb with almost comical relief.

"I've had constables outside my doors all night," I pointed out testily.

"Yes, and thank heaven for that, too. Merridew's been murdered."


	188. Call it Fortuitous

I stared at Lestrade, completely dumbfounded. In my half-awake state, I found it difficult to consider the ramifications of his announcement, and to Lestrade's credit, he did not assume that I could.

"The men who were escorting him were distracted by a fight, and Merridew ran for it. He was found not a quarter mile from here, stabbed.

"Since you were effectively in police custody all night, you're cleared as a suspect," the Inspector said. "And that's one small mercy. The Morning _Standard_ was so quick to claim that you'd taken your revenge that they'll look like fools come evening."


	189. Call it Unfortunate

"Stabbed?" I asked, still trying to grasp the most salient facts of Lestrade's news.

"With a scalpel. Which reminds me, do you have an inventory of yours?"

"No, but one scalpel is very much like another."

"I suppose."

"Besides, the house was burgled yesterday. Did you not get the report?"

"Burgled? With Mr. Holmes in it?"

I shook my head. "Holmes is gone. He left London yesterday," I added quickly, lest the inspector misconstrue my words.

Lestrade slumped into the chair by the window. "Left London? Now?"

"He thinks I shall be safer with him gone."

"But _we_ need him!"


	190. Call it Bedlam

I got up to pour a cup of water from the bedroom pitcher. "Here," I said as I handed it to Lestrade. "Drink that, and then tell me what else has happened."

"What hasn't?" Lestrade growled, but he drank the water. "Fighting in more than a dozen ale houses, a riot with injuries outside the court, a break-in at the Bank of England, although thanks be to heaven they got routed before they could actually steal anything, attempted arson at the Yard, and that's just the main of it. It's enough to make a man believe in Holmes's Professor Moriarty!"


	191. Call it Evidence

"I've more reason to believe in Moriarty's influence than that," I said, tugging up the sleeve of my nightshirt to show the welt on my arm. "We had words yesterday, after you left the court."

"You confronted him?"

"No. We negotiated via speaking tube. And I'm afraid I didn't drive a very good bargain. Tell MacDonald I can't testify. Not without endangering Mary."

Lestrade waved that aside. "There was never enough evidence in the Birlstone case to convince a jury," he said. "Not about Moriarty. Are you _certain _it was him?"

I slumped back down onto the bed. "I'm certain."


	192. Call it a Necessity

"Is that why he ran for it?" Lestrade asked, and only the exhaustion and disbelief in his voice let me forgive him for the words.

"Holmes made the decision to go before he turned up at the court," I said, correcting the misconception as I passed over Holmes's note. "He didn't discuss it with me, or Mary, but I can't say that he hasn't chosen for the best. He's in no condition to undertake any physical strain, much less a fight. And heaven only knows how he'd have persuaded the Irregulars to leave London if he hadn't gone with them."


	193. Call to the Table

Lestrade's narrow face seemed to sharpen. "He took the boys with him?"

"Most of them. The ones without families to miss them."

"Then we are in dee..." Lestrade broke off abruptly and sprang to his feet, bowing to the doorway. "Mrs. Watson."

"Inspector," my wife replied with careful calm. She'd come up without removing her apron, betraying her concern to anyone who knew her well, but her voice was steady. "Have you had your breakfast?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then come downstairs and take some coffee while John dresses. Whatever the news, it will be easier to discuss over bacon and eggs."


	194. Unlikely to Call

Breakfast did help, although my bruises were stiff and I had not yet accrued enough sleep. Lestrade and I drank coffee, and Mary drank tea, as we considered our meager options.

"Perhaps he'll send word to you," Lestrade said.

"I doubt it," I said wryly. I knew Holmes better than to hope for that.

After the business with Culverton Smith, I had attempted to extract a promise from Holmes not to worry me unnecessarily, without success. He simply did not believe that the rest of the world could not read my features with the same ease as he did himself.


	195. Call it Restitution

Having no better way to express my gratitude to Lestrade for his actions of the day before, I changed the bandages on his neck and lent him a heavy coat.

He was preparing to return to the Yard, when a messenger came with an envelope from Mycroft Holmes. I tore it open, hoping for information, and found only a note of congratulations over my vindication. That, and a cheque for "services rendered" inscribed with an amount which would have sent me rampaging down to the Diogenes Club were it not signed in a remarkably unsteady hand by Sherlock Holmes himself.


	196. Call it Arrogance

"What is it, John?" Mary asked, seeing my scowl, and I passed her Holmes's cheque. She in her turn passed it to Lestrade, whose curiosity was palpable. He whistled thoughtfully when he saw the amount.

"I'll wring his neck," I declared. "I never asked for compensation, and I never mean to. He's clever enough to _know _that."

"It would have come in useful if you'd gone to prison, dear," Mary said, calmly.

"And it may yet," Lestrade added, thoughtfully. "I don't think he actually meant it as a payment at all."

"What else could it be?" I protested.

"Running money."


	197. Call Him Unshakeable

"I'm not running."

Lestrade raised an eyebrow and Mary gathered her brows, but I crossed my arms and raised my chin, even while I thought to justify that first instinctive response. "It would be the height of foolishness to goad Moriarty into thinking I intended to renege on our bargain, no matter how unreasonable the terms."

"You just don't like being pushed," Lestrade observed. He passed me back the cheque. "Cash it anyway and carry as much as you can in a money belt. If Mr. Holmes turns up in need of ready funds you can always pay him back."


	198. Call for Change?

With Lestrade's departure, and his promise to see that constables would patrol more frequently on our street, Mary and I retreated to my consulting room and began fitting it to receive visitors once more. We worked in silent amity for a time, but as we started restoring the books to the shelves Mary spoke her mind.

"If even Sherlock Holmes thinks that London is unsafe," she ventured, "Perhaps it is."

"I've known Moriarty's reach to go well beyond London," I told her, thinking of the late John Douglas. "But we might be safe in India. If we got that far."


	199. A Childhood Recalled

"I'd like to see India again," Mary said, turning to me and resting her head against my chest. "I was only nine when I was sent away to England. And I still dream in Hindustani."

"Do you?" I took her in my arms and kissed her hair. "I've forgotten most of what I knew. You'd have to translate for me."

She looked up at me. "I would. But you really don't want to go, do you?"

"I don't want to go because I'm being chased," I corrected her. "But someday, perhaps."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, we wait."


	200. Call for the Boy

"Holmes doesn't know about the deal I made with Moriarty," I explained, although knowing my Mary, I was setting my thoughts out for my own benefit and not hers. "He's done his best by most of the boys, by taking them out of London, but if I'm not here to keep an eye on things, Moriarty may feel free to take advantage of the ones who are still here."

"Like Alfie?" she asked.

"Like Alfie."

A dimple appeared in her cheek, "Then I think it's quite convenient that Mr. Holmes has provided us with enough money to hire a page."


	201. Mail Call

Having determined to wait upon events, I set my jaw and waited. At Mary's insistence, the bulk of Holmes's money was sewn into my coat, though I made certain a healthy plenty was bestowed in the lining of hers as well. But days turned into weeks without any news, until the day that my new boy-in-buttons burst into my consulting room. "Doctor! Doctor!" he cried excitedly.

"What is it, Alfie?" I asked, setting aside my notes and closing the inkwell as a precaution.

"It's this." He thrust a postcard with a picture of pyramids into my hands. "It's from Wiggins."


	202. Call of the Sea

"Wish I was there, but here ain't bad." Having parsed that much out, I managed the rest of Wiggins's scrawl with more facility. "The work is hard, but the pay is good. Lots of stars at night without fog or smoke. I am learning to find my way by them. Tell M.H. and thank him for the maths book. I will be a navigator instead of cabin boy, the Captain says, by the time we get round the world. Thank S.H. for getting me the job and I hope he is safe now. Hope you are safe too.

"Jim Wiggins"


	203. Call Upon the Brother

"They've scattered," I said, and read the card aloud to Alfie, who wistfully agreed and then asked if he could keep the picture. I glad to hear from Wiggins, but frustrated by the realization that Holmes was not with him. Still, the postcard provided me with sufficient excuse to do what I very deliberately had not yet done.

That evening, therefore, I put on my best suit and coat and took a cab to the Diogenes Club, where I was ushered through the silent halls and into the warmth of the Strangers' Room to await the arrival of Mycroft Holmes.


	204. No Call for Alarm

"Doctor," Mycroft Holmes said, engulfing my hand in his own. "You have not heard from Sherlock." It was a statement, not a question.

"No, from Wiggins," I said. "He thanks you for the book, but he's had no more word of your brother than I."

"Sherlock is keeping his head low. The only news I've had is a laggardly bill for the tuition of a dozen boys at a small school in Yorkshire." Mycroft waved me to a chair and offered me snuff, which I refused. "Do not worry overmuch, doctor. Bad tidings I would have received entirely too quickly."


	205. Call it Logic

"Surely you know something more," I protested.

"Not definitely. Sherlock had a choice of ports once he was at sea. He could be anywhere from Cape Town to Christiana by now."

"The doctor who was with him?" I asked.

"Put ashore in Edinborough when his services were no longer required, to undertake a course of research at the University concerning the use of oxygen gas in lung injuries." Mycroft settled his hands across his waistcoat with interlaced fingers. "I have, of course, compensated Dr. Palmer for the loss of his device."

"He is healing, then."

"So I infer."

"Thank God."


	206. Call them Cross Purposes

We spoke a while longer – I told Mycroft Holmes about the nature of the truce I had negotiated with Professor Moriarty and he informed me in no uncertain terms how differently that conversation would have gone had I consulted with his brother beforehand.

"I would have," I said, with some asperity, "if I'd had reason to suppose that Moriarty had anything to do with the matter. But I didn't want to worry him."

Mycroft tugged a red silk handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to hide his amusement. "And he, my dear doctor, didn't want to worry you."


	207. Call it a Night

As the clock swung past the half hour, Mycroft Holmes pulled himself to his feet. "Time to part, Doctor," said he, and I knew that it was not rudeness, but his sacred routine which drove him.

I took the hand he offered and nodded my acquiescence. Routine has its comforts in an uncertain world. "Should you require my services," I said, "please do not hesitate."

He did hesitate then, and I saw the calculations flickering behind his eyes. "Not I," he said slowly. "But you may wish to keep an eye on the agony columns. Odysseus is still at sea."


	208. Call from Afar

"Riga – O."

Of all the cryptic messages in the past weeks' agony columns I could find, that one alone might have been from Holmes, but it was enough. I took to watching the papers like a hawk, and was rewarded first with "Stockholm – O," and a few days later, "Copenhagen – O." But I was concentrating so hard on the agony columns that it was Mary who first noticed the article on page three of the iChronicle/i.

"Look, John!" she cried, thrusting the newspaper into my hand and pointing to the headline. "Sherlock Holmes meets with the Crown Prince of Scandinavia!"


	209. Call Them Uncertain Tidings

I invested in foreign newspapers. Denmark, Belgium, France. And then my practice grew so busy that I had to give over most of the reading of them to Mary, while Alfie struggled through the agony columns in the English papers.

The two did not always match. O was in Normandy, while Holmes was reported in Paris, in Dieppe when Holmes was in Dijon. I was beginning to think I had it wrong entirely when O mentioned Dover. But then a tall, thin, red-headed farmer tipped his hat to me on the same morning that I received a note from Narbonne.


	210. Call it a Secret

"But how can Mr. Holmes be in two places at the same time?" Alfie asked, leaning his elbows on my desk and his chin on his hands as he waited for me to open the missive from France.

"I don't know, Alfie. Perhaps he has someone pretending to be him in France, so that he can be in London without it being known."

"So I can't tell nobody. Not even Gran."

"I'd rather you didn't discuss the matter with anyone, including Mrs. Watson," I told him as I pulled out Holmes's note. "Now, let's see what he has to say."


	211. Call it Small Comfort

My Dear Watson,

I write to congratulate you upon your vindication, and to thank you for the medical efforts you made on my behalf. I am convalescing in France. You may read in the papers that I have taken on a case for the French government, but as that task requires a pilgrimage to every spa and watering place the country has to offer, my full recuperation is assured. It will amuse you to learn that I have a young French policeman dangling at my heels, whose sole commission appears to be the mention of mealtimes at appropriate intervals.

Holmes


	212. Call Out the Dance

Alfie allowed himself to be dismissed to the kitchen, still gnawing on the question of Holmes's actual whereabouts. I saw him off, and then carefully applied the note from France to the chimney of the table lamp.

Brown figures began to emerge on the paper, stick-figures done in lemon-juice, and I did not need to reach for my notebooks to remember the cipher of the dancing men. Carefully, I parsed out the message.

"My next letter from France will be a signal. Get Mary out of London. Your choice to stay or go. I will come if you stay. Holmes."


	213. Call it Trust

Mary folded her arms. "And what if I'd rather _stay_ in London?" she asked.

"If Holmes thinks you'd be better to..."

"If Mr. Sherlock Holmes thinks that I can't mind myself..." Our words collided, and thankfully, she gave way first.

I reached for her. "Holmes does think you can mind yourself. He wouldn't suggest that we part, otherwise. But _he_ won't come to _me_ if you're here. He won't bring the lightnings down on your head."

"Just yours." She tucked herself against my shoulder, and sighed. "And you want that, don't you? You want to share the danger with him."


	214. Don't Call it Goodbye

"Holmes hasn't asked for my help, but I think he's going to need it, all the same." She smelled of vanilla and flour and soap, my Mary, and I held her all the closer, breathing in that scent of our home and our life together. "I never bargained for my own safety, and I'm afraid that if I leave London with you, Moriarty will feel obliged to send someone after me, to make certain of my silence. But if you go alone, you might be safe. If Moriarty's a man of his word. And I might be safer with Holmes."


	215. Company Calling

"We'd need a very good reason for me to go," Mary objected, although it was clear that she was becoming reconciled to the notion. "Visiting the Forresters won't take me farther than Camberwell."

"What about your great-aunt?" Myfanwy Morstan had appeared in our lives some months after our wedding, like a clap of distant thunder, and had declared herself a relation. "Wales is a long way from London."

Mary nodded agreement reluctantly, for her sudden relation was elderly, dictatorial, and inclined to raise a fuss. But then a smile lit up her face. "I know! I'll take Alfie with me!"


	216. Call for a Plan

In the end we decided that Alfie should go, and his grandmother too, on the grounds that the old lady would do better for a time away from the reek and smoke of London air – an excuse all the better for being true.

Alfie objected, of course, preferring to be in the thick of things, but I reconciled him to our plans by extracting a solemn promise to guard Mary as best he could, and to warn her of any dangers. That, and teaching him the secret of the dancing men for our correspondence.

Now we had only to wait.


	217. Call Waiting

It was another three weeks before the second missive from Holmes arrived, by which time I had cleaned my revolver half a dozen times, re-written a letter of apology and instruction concerning my practice to Anstruther four times, and found myself on the rooftop investigating odd noises in the middle of the night thrice. I'd also been dogged on my rounds to patients, and had narrowly avoided being accosted in an alleyway by a pair of burly ruffians one foggy night.

Nevertheless, I sat and studied the envelope in my hands for a very long time before I opened it.


	218. Call it Intrigue

"The time has come..." The first words of Holmes's note were done with a different pen nib than the rest, as if he'd meant them to stand out, but I scarcely required that clue. I skimmed the rest of the message impatiently. His case was concluded, he was coming home to Baker Street, he did not know when he would find time to call upon me and Mary, but trusted that we were well. No sign of the dancing men, but traces of steam upon the wafer, as if someone else had perused these same words.

The game was afoot.


	219. Warning Call

Paddington Station was crowded and noisy, the train to Cardiff packed with small, dark haired folk all chattering amongst themselves in the musical language of their destination. Alfie clung to his grandmother's hand, craning his neck in every direction.

"Are you sure you'll be all right, doctor?" he asked me somberly. "All alone like this? Are you sure?"

"I'll be fine," I told him, although my own hand did not want to leave go of Mary's.

"It's just..." He bit his lip. "It feels like a mistake. We're running away. And if we go, things won't ever be the same."


	220. Penultimate Call

Alfie's prescience disturbed me more than I dared show, but I did not allow his words to dissuade me from seeing the party off. Still, I returned home in a state of disquiet, and dismissed the servants for the rest of the week, my own unease making intolerable the possibility that more innocents might suffer for my bravado.

My rounds were short, my surgery quiet. By mid-afternoon I was alone in the quiet house, making desultory notes at the desk in my consulting room in lieu of writing down the story I had promised on my honor not to tell.


	221. Final Call

Evening came, and at last a soft footfall on the carpet in the hall. I set aside my book in favor of my service revolver, but when the door to my consulting room opened my visitor turned out to be Sherlock Holmes. I would have got to my feet to greet him, but he signalled to me to stay where I was, sidling hastily through the shadows to the corner by the bookshelf.

"Good evening, Watson," he drawled, a smile playing about his lips as he regarded me fondly. "I trust it is not too late to pay a call?"


	222. Curtain Call

_It struck me that he was looking even paler and thinner than usual.  
"Yes, I have been using myself up rather too freely," he remarked, in answer to my look rather than to my words; "I have been a little pressed of late. Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?"  
The only light in the room came from the lamp upon the table at which I had been reading. Holmes edged his way round the wall, and flinging the shutters together, he bolted them securely.  
"You are afraid of something?" I asked.  
"Well, I am."  
"Of what?"  
"Of air-guns."_

* * *

If those one hundred (and one!) words look familiar, it's because they are a direct quote from "The Final Problem", which I have been leading up to for some time now. Please imagine the Watson of "Call for the Doctor" going off to Europe and eventually to the Reichenbach Falls, only to come home and find himself some time afterward needing to tell the story, and sufficiently constrained by his bargain with Moriarty not to publish _The Valley of Fear_ that he had to invent or adapt the conversation introducing the Napoleon of Crime to his readers.

I am sad to come to the end of this tale – and not quite so sad to find myself freed of the necessity of coming up with yet another title using the word "Call" (or at least the sound of the word!). But I can't tell the story better than Conan Doyle did.

I may, eventually, come back and write a sequel to this, but for now, there are other wips waiting. Thank you all for sticking with this story through all 22,100 words!

Beta Thanks to Jane Turenne, who has patiently read through my first drafts and suggested many a title. Also thanks to Protector of the Gray Fortress and KCS, for letting me borrow Alfie.


End file.
